


In Sickness

by NotASpaceAlien



Series: Your Own Side [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Horror, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9493166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: Hastur enlists the help of Hell’s only healer in a bid for revenge on Crowley.  But no one can decide if the archdemon Maltha is bad at her job, or just a little too good…





	1. DRAMATIS PERSONAE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the dramatis personae for THE WHOLE SERIES, not just In Sickness. I put it here at the beginning of the first story for convenience. 
> 
> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/156504720700/your-own-side-dramatis-personae

**CELESTIAL BEINGS**

God (God)

Metatron (The Voice of God)

Michael (The Sword of Heaven, Bearer of Divine Wrath, Bringer of Justice, Force of Good Against the Darkness, etc.)

Uriel (Keeper of the Divine Aura)

Gabriel (Co-Overseer of Divine Affairs on Earth)

Camael (Co-Overseer of Divine Affairs on Earth)

Raphael (Bearer of Divine Healing)

DEATH (Death)

Victoria (A Heavenly Warrior)

Vincent (A Guardian Angel)

Angelo (An Exasperated Assistant)

Aziraphale (An Angel, and part-time rare book dealer)

Kyleth (An Angel)

Paula (An Angel)

Ramial (An Angel)

Kris (An Angel)

Olivia (An Angel)

Rosia (A Love-struck Angel)

 

**HUMANS**

Beth (A Woman)

 

**ANTICHRISTS**

Adam (Former Antichrist and Current Useless But Supportive Defender of Earth)

Noah (An Antichrist)

 

**INFERNAL BEINGS**

Satan (A Fallen Angel; the Adversary)

Maltha (A Fallen Angel and Princess of Hell; Former Bearer of Divine Healing, Currently Hell’s Only Practicing Healer)

Kabata (A Fallen Angel, former Co-Overseer of Divine Affairs on Earth, Current Busybody and General Ne’er-do-well)

Mammon (A Fallen Angel and Princess of Hell)

Ba’al Berith (A Fallen Angel and Prince of Hell)

Agares (A Fallen Angel and Princess of Hell)

Dagon (A Fallen Angel and Prince of Hell)

Beelzebub (A Fallen Angel and Prince of Hell)

Hastur (A Fallen Angel and Very Bitter Duke of Hell)

Jezebel (A Fallen Angel and Duke of Hell)

Marko (A Fallen Angel, Supposedly a Healer, But Not Very Good At His Job)

Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards)

Oryss (A Fallen Angel)

Botis (A Fallen Angel)

Abraxas (A Fallen Angel)

Adramelech (A Fashionable Fallen Angel)

Yulera (A Fallen Angel)

Ritze (A Fallen Angel)

Rava (A Love-struck Fallen Angel)

Dog (Satanical hellhound and cat-worrier)

 

AND:

Mittens (A Worried Cat)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author's note for the whole series: I tried to make Aziraphale's Legion, First Meetings, and Falling Hazard complex stories that you could read through multiple times and catch new things each time. In Sickness and The Coming events, not so much, but they serve as a launching pad for what is to come.
> 
> As you may have noticed, The Coming Events is older than the rest of the series and I wrote it about a year before the others. Originally it was not intended to be connected to any other works so please forgive me if the meshing is a bit awkward at times. Additionally, some readers have lodged criticism of the characterization in that story and I can't help but agree with them. Please just remember I wrote it while I was still finding my voice and I think I've improved a lot since then, and I hope you won't judge the rest of the series by it. The stories after TCE got a lot of polishing and some parts went through four or five drafts to try and get it right. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!


	2. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/156506275895/in-sickness-part-1

Here is something not many people know: Raphael was not the original archangel of healing.  There was one before him, but few remember what her name was when she was an angel.

Her name now is Maltha, and even other archdemons fear her.

* * *

A celestial or infernal being can be inflicted with two types of injury.  The first is an injury to their physical body or corporation, which does not affect their “true” or supernatural form at all.  This is caused by anything that would hurt a human—getting hit by a bus, being shot, bumping your head—but can be easily healed with the non-specific supernatural powers that all angels and demons possess.  A certain angel/demon pair heal their hangovers this way quite frequently.  However, not all ills are so trivial even to an immortal.

The second type is spiritual injury.  This can be inflicted with aural weapons, holy water (on demons), hellfire (on angels), or a manner of occult paraphernalia.  These injuries can heal on their own over time, usually, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t cause a decent amount of suffering, or even death if left untreated.  

Angels and demons generally do not like to acknowledge that they can die.  They point out that they are immortal at every opportunity, focusing on the fact that they do not age or get old and infirm like humans do, not dwelling overly long on the fact that they _can_ be killed.  It makes them uncomfortable to think about, so they ignore it. 

This is a habit they share with humans.

It is not often that Death has to reap a supernatural being, but it does happen if no one is around to treat a spiritual injury.  And who exactly is there to treat these wounds?  A garrison of angelic healers, created from the very beginning to serve this exact function.  

It may be unclear exactly why there would need to be angelic healers before creation was corrupted. Injury supposedly should not have existed with just Heaven and the angels and the perfectly, not-yet-fully-formed Earth, but injury must have been inevitable, because there they were.

God does not make mistakes.  He knew the creation would be corrupted, He eventually destroyed the Earth with a flood because He regretted making it, but He is perfect and does not make mistakes.

So healing angels existed before they had anything to heal. They were very bored.

There was one particular healing angel who was very easily bored.  He had expressive, golden eyes, and he was particularly clever and inclined to question.  He was restless because he was told that his job was to heal, and then placed into a realm where no one was ever injured.

The healing angels got their first job soon enough, though.  There was a rebellion in Heaven, and we all know how that went.

Surprisingly, despite their dissatisfaction, there was only one healer among the original lot to fall. He was there because his friends had asked him to come along, but they hadn’t really given him an accurate explanation of what they were doing.

“We need a healer tonight. Something’s going on.  We might get hurt.  Will you come with us?  We need your support.  Please? You’re not going to let us go by ourselves, are you?  What if we get hurt and you’re not there?”

The archangel of healing who would eventually be known as Maltha saw him saunter downwards, and she could see him laugh and try to pretend he didn’t care, that he was fed up with Heaven anyway.  But she could see the fear in his eyes, and he screamed as he vanished from sight.

He had an awful time in Hell.  Even those angels who had used to be his friends mistreated him.  Now that they were demons their purpose was to destroy and desecrate.  What place would a gentle healer have among their ranks?

Showing any sign of weakness in Hell was a death sentence.  Any vulnerability was exploited, with every demon climbing over each other and backstabbing to try and reach the top.  To admit injury and subject oneself to another for treatment would require a level of trust demons were no longer allowed to safely show.

The healer, the one with infernal golden eyes who was so clever and inclined to question, got fed up with his new lot in life quickly.  Like many lesser demons, he was forced to hide in Hell where he could to avoid those who were bigger than him.  It was not an enriching existence.

When God’s creation was finally finished, he saw his opportunity to flee, and he escaped up there despite the fact that no one had given him permission to leave. 

He liked the Garden. Everything was green and healthy and alive and interesting.  The humans who lived there didn’t realize it, but the reason the plants never wilted and always bloomed big flowers was because there was a snake living among them who had once been a healer, and he was finally able to do his old job without repercussions.

After the Garden he wouldn’t heal anything for a very long time, however.

The assignment about “getting up there to make some trouble” had been an afterthought to cover up the fact that he had disobeyed orders. He argued with them that disobedience should be encouraged, and they argued back that his _specific_ disobedience was counterproductive, and he replied by simply ignoring them after that.  

The truth was, no one was brave enough to go up and retrieve him by force.  He was in a realm where there were angels, it was closer to the Creator who had rejected them, and by then Hell was safe and familiar.  They wanted to save face by pretending he was supposed to be up there, which was fine with him.  He stayed aboveground and eventually slithered right out of his old job, his original lot all but forgotten with the passing of time. 

After the disappearance of those whose lot it was to become demons, Heaven was suddenly much emptier. And the archangel who would eventually be called Maltha walked the halls of her healing clinic every day with a broken heart.  She had held so much love for her charges, the ones she was supposed to heal before injury was even invented.  And now that it had been, she was forbidden from helping them, or even loving them.

One day she could take it no more.  The remaining angels looked on in horror as the archangel who would eventually be called Maltha beat her great black wings to rise up and hover level with the Almighty.

“Why have you done this? You told me I am responsible for the health and well-being of my siblings, and the first time they are hurting you throw them out instead of letting me help them.  And you’ve also forsaken one of my healers, who I loved very much.  If everything you make is perfect, why have you treated your children like trash?”

The number of fallen healers then became two.

And so Maltha arrived in Hell, behind everyone else, when the infernal hierarchy had already been established.  They tried to tell her that healers had no place in Hell, though with less courage than they had when telling the lesser healer.  All the love she had held in her heart rotted immediately; she had fallen trying to defend them, and now they were rejecting her. Her love twisted and useless, decayed into molten hatred, she began a rampage.

It wasn’t long before Satan himself took notice, because he became legitimately concerned that Maltha could overthrow him.  Her celestial charge had been the power of healing and life itself, which no one had wielded with more expertise than her.  And now fallen, her power had warped with her love into the power of destruction and death.  Her healing staff had always been a conduit of her powers, and that was still true: healing power still flowed through her hands, but her staff burned with the black flame of death, the corrupted version of the gentle healing light it had once glowed with.  One blow from this fearsome new weapon was enough to kill almost anyone.

She was enraged.  She was unchecked.  And worst of all, she challenged authority in a way that no one down there had dared to since falling.

Eventually, and partially at the urging of the lesser demons who had no hope of protection from this storm, Satan himself confronted Maltha. 

“Maltha, why are you killing your siblings?  Why are you killing my followers?”

“I have no place here. They said themselves I can do nothing of use. This is all that remains for me.”

“You obviously can be of use.  You should come be one of my generals and help lead my armies.”

“No, I do not want to do that.”

“What do you want to do, Maltha?  What would make you happy?”

“I want to heal.”

Satan pacified her by granting her wish.  She was given the position of Hell’s official healer, with a facility in the third circle, and Satan even gave her a few demons to help her and take the place of the healers she had to help her in Heaven.

It wasn’t the same. The clinic stood empty because no demon wanted to show weakness or trust Maltha, especially after what she had done. And no matter how much she trained them, the demons who worked for her weren’t good at it because they had never been healers. It wasn’t in their nature. 

Eventually, she returned to Satan with an addendum to her demand.  “I want my healer.  One of my healers fell during the rebellion before me.  I want him.”

“I don’t know where he is, Maltha.  Hell has no other healers.  And no one remembers what another demon did before the fall. We have all changed our names and our appearances.  If you want him, you will have to find him yourself.”

No one would help her find him.  She had no way to even recognize him, because all the angels had become strange and distorted and unrecognizable after they’d fallen, and no one would tell her what their angelic name had been.  She wept because she missed him, and she missed her siblings in Heaven, but eventually she had to harden her heart to survive. 

So she gave up looking for him and started her work without him.

When Satan had given Maltha permission to be Hell’s healer, he figured, at worst, that she would sit in the clinic alone because no one would show up.  Eventually, his blanket permission to heal backfired tremendously.  

More demons were now going up to the Earth, either because their fear of the place had faded upon seeing the serpent’s success, or because the demons above them were now commanding them to.  And they were getting into fights with the angels they had been so afraid of.  And they would invariably hide away somewhere on Earth to let their wounds heal slowly on their own, because they would be fools to seek Maltha out.

So she decided to stop waiting for demons to come to her.  She became more proactive. 

Her very first patient was terribly surprised to be forcibly removed from Earth and taken downstairs to recover, despite protesting against it.  They did not have a good experience in the clinic and fled as soon as Maltha released them.  Everyone laughed at the first victim, but it soon became clear that this was to be a pattern of behaviour.  As the word spread of what Maltha was doing, demons began to fear being injured not for the pain, but because of the threat of getting a visit from Maltha.

And she _would_ visit.

“I’m going to heal you. Stop struggling.  Lie still.  Stop screaming.  This is for your own good.”


	3. The Doctor WILL see you now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/156692955105/in-sickness-part-2

“Lord Maltha!”

“Hm?”

“Someone’s come in.”

Maltha put down the pen she had been writing with.  “Someone’s _come_ _in_?” 

“Yes.”

This had never happened before.  “Send them in, then.”

A demon peeked its head into the room, then strode forwards and took a seat quickly in front of her desk.

“Maltha, I’m so glad you could see me!” said the demon, who was a lanky fellow with ugly teeth.  “I have this friend I’m very worried about, and I was hoping you could help me.”

The feathery crest on Maltha’s head rose slightly with interest.  “Indeed?  Tell me more.”  She shuffled through the papers on her desk.  “I hadn’t thought I missed someone.  We were all caught up as far as I could see.”

“My friend’s name is Crowley,” said the demon.  “He’s stationed on Earth and I think there’s something wrong with him.”

Maltha snapped a writing tablet open and began swiping a pen over it.  “Give me details, and I’ll look into it right away.  What’s the nature of his injury?”

Maltha had not spent much time on Earth or socializing at all.  If she had, she might have recognized what followed as an overdramatic lie.  But since she’d never been very good at interpersonal interaction, she didn’t.

The demon burst into tears. “Maltha, it’s not a physical injury. I think there’s something wrong with his _head_ , you know?  His head, his mental health.  He’s a danger to himself.”

Maltha tapped her pen. This was also a first.  Typically when a demon was noted to behave in a manner that would have made a human concerned about another’s mental health, that demon got a commendation for it, not concern.  “What makes you say that?” 

“He _loves_ , I know he does.  It’s not right for a demon.  It’s very concerning.”

All of Maltha’s feathers and hair stood on end.  “What did you say?” she growled.

“Love.  He loves.”

“What does he love?”

“ _God’s creation_.”

Maltha let out a furious hiss.  “That is not _proper_.  There must be something wrong with him.”

“That’s exactly what I thought!  And I thought you might be able to help him.”

She stood.  “It’s good that you brought this to my attention. Thank you.  I will see to it.  And how are _you_ feeling today?”

“Oh, I’m—I’m—I’m just fine,” stuttered the demon, backpedaling. “Nothing wrong with me, right as rain!”

Maltha smiled. “That’s excellent.  And may I have your name, please?  So Crowley can know which friend of his was so concerned about him.”

“The name’s Hastur,” said the other demon, suppressing a smirk.  “And you can tell him it was me.”

 

* * *

 

Crowley hummed to himself, his tie flapping in the wind rushing over him through the Bentley’s open window, his hair whipping everywhere.  “I’m in Love With My Car” was on the radio.

“Don’t you think you ought to slow down a bit?” said Aziraphale, bracing himself on the door handle as the Bentley took a sharp turn.

“Nonsense!” said Crowley enthusiastically.  “There’s hardly a pedestrian in sight!”

The Bentley barreled its way down the road and skidded to a stop directly in front of Aziraphale’s bookshop.  Crowley popped the passenger’s side door open.  “There you are, angel.”

“Thank you, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, making a motion to get out.

“Erm, hold on a moment,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale turned back to look at him.

“Erm…” said Crowley. “I mean, I didn’t mean we had to _go home_ , necessarily, I just meant we should leave the _gala_.  It’s not too late yet, did you want to…grab something to eat, or…?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Ah, I had some work I was still hoping to get done tonight, actually.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, deflating.

“Oh, ah, although,” said Aziraphale, “I should be free tomorrow night, hm?  We could go see that movie you’re so keen on checking out.”

Crowley continued humming on his way home.  Things had been going quite well between him and Aziraphale since the aversion of the almost-apocalypse, and he was quite pleased with the slow and steady progression of their relationship.  If that were the proper word for it…

When he reached his flat, he jammed the Bentley in between two cars that had not previously been far enough apart to admit it.  But the other cars were the ones that got the scratches, so it was all right.  He made his way up to his flat, still humming, in high spirits.

He strolled down the darkened hallway, popped his locked front door open without withdrawing a key, stepped in, then froze and stood absolutely still.

One might ask if demons are afraid of the dark.  A demon _is_ something people are afraid of meeting in the dark, so would demons themselves harbor that very human fear?

The answer is yes, but only if there is something in the dark with them.

A pair of red eyes glowed faintly at him from the far side of the room, fixed on him with intense interest.  

With a motion, Crowley flicked the lights on.

There was an enormous woman sitting at the table in the kitchenette, her mouth turned in a sharp line, neither smiling nor frowning, a crop of black feathers erupting from her head, her feet sinisterly curled into wicked talons. 

“M-Maltha!” squeaked Crowley.  “I-I’m sorry, you startled me.  I had no reason to expect you might be coming, seeing as how I’m not injured.”   He held out his hands and did a nervous twirl. “Nope, nothing wrong with me at all, perfectly fine!”

Maltha’s claws scraped against the floor as she stood.  “As far as I can _see._ ”  

“What does _that_ mean?” said Crowley.  “There’s nothing wrong with my organs either.”

“Crowley, I’d like you to come down and visit my clinic.  Just for an evaluation.  It shouldn’t take long.”

Crowley seemed to wilt a little.  There was no saying _no_ to a direct summon like that. “Oh.  All right.”

He felt like a condemned man walking to the gallows as they made their way down to Hell.  This is not uncommon for _people_ with that particular destination, although not usually true of demons.

They reached the third circle soon enough.  When they entered the healing clinic, orderlies and nurses with beady eyes and clad in stained, off-white uniforms peered at him hungrily; the entryway was dirty linoleum, with fluorescent lights buzzing incessantly.

“Take a seat in there,” said Maltha, indicating a room.  “I’ll be with you in one moment.”

Crowley did as he was told and found a room with grimy carpet, a ripped vinyl bench patched with white medical tape, a rusty sink, and an open biohazard bin full of broken needles. Grimacing, he eased himself up onto the bench, the paper crinkling as he did so, and was disheartened to hear the door lock behind him.

He sat in silence, the lights buzzing.

Damn.  Was it just naturally part of the medical process to make your patients wait?  Was this part psychological torture of some kind?

Finally, the door creaked open, and Maltha entered, writing on a clipboard.  She had a stethoscope around her neck.  “Unbutton your shirt.”

Crowley squirmed. “Lord Maltha, there’s really nothing wrong with—”

“ _Unbutton your shirt,_ ” she cawed, and Crowley was too scared not to obey.

The stethoscope was cold on his chest, and she scribbled something onto the clipboard quickly before putting one claw on his wrist and taking his pulse.

“Okay,” she said, apparently satisfied with whatever information she had gleaned from that.  “I’m going to give you some psychological tests to see how you respond.  Please remember that there’s no right or wrong answer.”

She held up a card with black blotches in strange shapes.  “What do you see in this image?”

“It looks like someone dribbled ink onto cardstock.”

“Well, yes, but do you see anything else besides that?”

“I can kind of see your hand through it, if that’s what you mean.”

It was the first time anyone had ever failed a Rorschach test.  Maltha dropped the cards.  “That’s okay. No wrong answers and all that. Let’s…move on.  There’s a different type of test I’d like you to take.”

Maltha escorted him out and into a different room in the back.  The orderlies and nurses once again stared at him with the expression of starved wolves as he came out, but none of them made any movements towards him. Maltha seemed to be radiating vague disdain for them, and it kept them pinned to the far side of the room.

The second room had rusty red walls and Crowley didn’t like the look of it at all.  The effect was not lessened at all when Maltha put a knife in his hand.

“Stand right here, please.” She motioned to someone outside, and one of her demonic helpers came in with a pathetic figure bound in chains, its face distorted as to be unrecognizable, its form withered and incorporeal.

It was a human soul. Crowley swallowed.

“Crowley, destroy this human soul.”

Crowley ground his teeth. The damned human looked at him with a resigned sort of fear, but its eyes were still pleading.

“Look,” said Crowley, though he did not drop the knife.  “It was just doing its best—”

“Crowley,” said Maltha, “Damning and killing human souls is part of the job description of a demon. I hadn’t thought you were unable to carry out your duties?”

 _No right answer my ass._  It was a test, and Crowley knew damn well it was pass/fail.

He liked people.  It was a major failing in a demon.  So he had hoped no one would ever find out.

It was a messy process and there would have been quite a lot of blood, had disembodied human souls contained any.  He could hardly stand to look at what was left of the wretched thing, trying not to think of the possibility that he had been responsible for this particular soul’s temptation in life.  He wiped the knife off and tried to hand it back to Maltha.

“Hold onto it,” said Maltha, and his heart sank.

She snapped at the orderly, who removed the remains of the human.  “I can see that caused you a lot of distress, Crowley.”

“No!” said Crowley with what he hoped was convincing bravado.  “Not at all!  Why would it? I love….ah….killing.”

She fixed one eye on him and scribbled something on her clipboard quickly.

“What are you writing?”

“Observations.”

Crowley tried to peer over to see her notes, but she was so much larger than him that they weren’t at eye level, and she snapped the clipboard away quickly so that she could motion to another orderly outside.

He couldn’t stifle the gasp that welled up; this time the figure in chains had broad, sandy wings.  The orderly forced it to its knees, and the angel didn’t meet Crowley’s gaze.

“Az-Aziraphale?”

“Good, you recognize him,” said Maltha.  “Now, kill him.”

Crowley clutched the knife with nothing short of terror.  Kill Aziraphale?   _Kill_ him?  It was one thing when they were on earth and one of them died; they could simply get a new body and come back later after some paperwork, but _here_ —

He felt hot breath on his ear as Maltha’s voice said softly, directly to him, “Kill him,” and Crowley was reminded of the stakes.

He squeezed his eyes shut. _Why_ was Maltha doing this?  What would this prove?  He knew angels died sometimes when their healers couldn’t get to them fast enough, but _he_ had never had to kill any of them.

And _Aziraphale_ , of all angels.   _His_ angel.

Crowley whirled around and rammed the blade into Maltha’s abdomen.

The archdemon’s eyes glowed like two coals burning him.  Crowley stumbled backwards as she jerked the knife out of herself, the wound sliding closed almost instantly under her hands.  “You know, Crowley, I said there was no wrong answer, but that was about as close to a wrong answer as it was possible to get.”

Crowley decided that his priority was now getting out of here at any cost.  He dashed over to grab Aziraphale, but his hands ghosted right through him.

The orderly let out a warped laugh.  The image of Aziraphale disappeared; Crowley stared at the space where he had been, his eyes wide and dumb.

“Crowley, I wouldn’t bring a _real_ angel into my clinic,” said Maltha.  “Not where there are vulnerable patients.”

“Where is he?” Crowley shouted.

“He was never _here_ , you lunatic,” said the orderly viciously.

“Marko,” snarled Maltha, her voice shrieking like a predatory hawk, and the orderly cowered against the wall.  “That is _not_ how you talk to patients.”

“He stabbed you!”

“He’s not well!  It’s not his fault.”

Crowley was suddenly aware that he could no longer claim demonic sanity as a defense; he had chosen to stab another demon instead of an angel, and then expressed concern over that angel’s well-being.

 _Shit_.

“Grab him!” said Maltha as Crowley darted towards the exit, and hands clamped onto him immediately.  He thrashed as hard as he could, but he was fighting against arms that had had millennia of practice subduing demons who were trying to escape.

That’s how Crowley found himself trussed up in a straightjacket and lashed to a wheelchair, being pushed further into the clinic.

“Maltha, I’m _not sick,_ ” he said, desperately tugging at the manacles keeping his legs to the chair.  “Please believe me, I’m _not_.”

He felt one of her great hands on his head.  “There’s no shame in admitting you’re sick,” said Maltha’s voice from behind him. “Your friend was very concerned about you.”

“My _friend?_ ”

“Duke Hastur, of course.”

“Damn him!” hissed Crowley. “That bastard, he wanted to get back at me for what I did to him and Ligur!”  He began to try and elbow his way out of the straightjacket, but they had put it on him so tightly he could hardly breathe.

“He’s not ‘getting back at you,’” said Maltha.  The wheels on the chair continued to squeak and whine.  “This isn’t a punishment, Crowley.  This is to help you.”

“I don’t need help! Let me out of here!”

“Crowley, what if that angel on Earth had decided to attack you?  You wouldn’t have defended yourself.  You would have gotten hurt.  You’re a danger to yourself.  And you’re obviously not well if you’d attack a fellow demon.”

“He wouldn’t attack me!”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say it sounds like you trust that angel.”

“So what if I do? It’s not like there are any demons I can trust!”

Crowley’s eyes blew wide with alarm as he felt Maltha’s hands release the wheelchair; it sedately lolled to the side, the foot rests clanking against the wall.

The electric lights buzzed.

Maltha bent into his field of vision slowly, one hand on an armrest, the other planted against the wall, leaning into his face, her mouth fixed in a toothy snarl.  Crowley slid down as far as the restraints would allow him, shrinking away, his agitated attempts to break free frozen by fear.

“Angels are scum,” said Maltha.  “They stood by and watched as the Creator sentenced their brothers and sisters to an eternity of suffering.  They were indifferent in the face of injustice.  That angel didn’t lift a finger to help you because it wasn’t convenient.  They will _always_ be your enemies.  There is something wrong with you for trying to form any sort of relationship with any angel, and you _are_ a danger to yourself and others if you’re going to do something like that.”

She withdrew and took a very deep breath.  That toothy snarl turned back upwards into a smile again, and she walked back around. The wheelchair started moving forwards with a clatter.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have let my emotions show through like that.  It’s not your fault.  Being on Earth so long has obviously affected you.  We’ll have you back to the way you should be in no time.”

Crowley’s nerves were absolutely shot.  He slumped in the chair.  “I’m not sick.”

“You are.  Demons should not feel love towards any of God’s creation.”

“Maltha, the Earth is wonderful, I’m not sick for loving it.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Humans are so clever and build so many interesting things, cars and fountains with electric lights and screens that let you talk to anyone no matter where they are, and they feed small animals just for the sake of being kind, and they give each other gifts just to see each other smile, and on clear days the sunset makes the sky look like cotton candy and the grass feels so good on your stomach—feet—and the _plants_ , they grow and grow and you get to watch and say _I did that,_ and the food and the wine—Maltha, haven’t you ever sat down with someone you cared about and drunk good wine?”

“I haven’t, no,” said Maltha.  He knew she was just patronizing him now, and he knew that going on was just digging him deeper and deeper in, because he sounded like a raving lunatic to anyone who didn’t appreciate Earth, which was all demons except him.

He shut his mouth, defeated. The chair finally stopped rolling, and Maltha pushed him into a room with soft walls, closing the door behind her.

“I can’t stay here,” he said.  “I have a date tomorrow night.”

“We won’t keep you here long,” she said, walking over to a cabinet and pulling it open.  “I’m sure you’ve got important things to do, so we’ll send you on your way as soon as we can.”

Now this was cruel. He wouldn’t lose the Earth and his car and his plants and his angel and all the humans and all the things he liked. He would just lose the ability to find any joy or meaning in them. 

He heard pills rattling around.  God, there were a lot of pills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend made a drawing for this :) you can see it here http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/156722249925/milkythefrozen-hastur-from-not-a-space-alien-s


	4. The Church on the Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art in this chapter is by kogla http://kogla.tumblr.com/ and on dA http://kogla.deviantart.com/art/You-what-661498716
> 
> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/156797980320/in-sickness-part-3

“Hi, this is Anthony Crowley.  Leave a message after the tone.  Ciao.”

“Ohh, where is that stupid man?” said Aziraphale, slamming his phone in the cradle.  Their movie date had come and gone weeks ago, and there hadn’t been any sign of Crowley at all.  He huffed, covering up his worry with indignation.

Well, it’s not like they hadn’t gone this long without seeing each other before.  There had been times when they hadn’t crossed paths in decades.

Ohhh, but that had been _before_ they had tried to stop the apocalypse together. They had been getting….closer since then.  And Crowley almost always answered his phone, or at least called him back.  He wouldn’t just start deliberately avoiding him! Unless Aziraphale had done something wrong?

He began to go over his actions in the days leading up to the last time he had seen Crowley with a fine-toothed comb.  The demon had seemed perfectly happy when they had parted.  He wouldn’t have felt slighted by Aziraphale suggesting they part for the night and then see the movie the day after, would he?  No, that was silly; they rearranged plans like that all the time.

Then what?

Aziraphale made his way to the roof of the building and spread his wings, circling over London, making sure that no humans would see him.  If he couldn’t find Crowley, maybe he could kill some time looking for good deeds that needed done.

He was restless and agitated; he flew for hours, not finding anything worthy of landing.  Until:

“Oh, dear,” said the angel, noting a billow of smoke on the horizon.

He banked and dived towards it, making sure to stay invisible until his wings were folded into his back.

It was a small church out in the country, engulfed in fire, flames licking out through the windows and up the steeple.  Apparently he had been the first one to see it, because there weren’t any fire trucks or emergency response around; only one man-shaped being with his hands in his pockets, his sunglasses glinting yellow in the firelight.

“What _happened_?” said Aziraphale, dashing to Crowley’s side.

“What do you _think_ happened?  I set it ablaze.”

“You _what_?” said Aziraphale with horror. 

 

 His wings ripped from his back again.  “Is there anyone inside?”

“That’s _your_ job, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale turned to his companion, who was looking at him with steely indifference, his eyes hidden by the dark glasses.

“Stay right there,” said Aziraphale icily.  “I need to talk to you when I get back.”

Aziraphale learned two things: one, that there _wasn’t_ anyone inside the church.  And two, that he was glad he had not been in his bookshop when it had burned down, because burning buildings were positively awful.

Coughing and hacking and dusting ashes off himself, he emerged to find that firetrucks had finally arrived, but the demon was gone.

He stopped just short of growling.  The emergency responders who tried to approach him found themselves mysteriously diverted and unable to locate him. He convinced them to forget they saw him as he kicked off into the air.

He hunted around until he found Crowley again, who had gotten surprisingly far.

“You!” said Aziraphale, landing right in front of him and forcing him to stop his progress down the sidewalk.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“That’s none of _your_ business,” said Crowley, removing his sunglasses.  His serpentine eyes were dilated and drilling into Aziraphale predatorily.

“You could have killed someone!” Aziraphale shouted.  “What’s wrong with you?”

“That’s my job!” hissed Crowley.

“Since when did you care about that?  Remember the M25?  Manchester? The coins on the sidewalk?   _That’s_ what you do, Crowley, you’ve always gotten by on petty mischief, and mere temptation, not—that!”

Crowley grimaced, like Aziraphale had brought up embarrassing memories.  “I wasn’t well.”

“You weren’t well? What does _that_ mean?”

Crowley replaced his sunglasses.  “Listen, you stupid angel, we’re enemies, remember?  The Arrangement’s off. It was a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Aziraphale flinched as though he had been physically struck.  “Crowley, _why_ would you say that _?_ ”

“I’m better now,” he growled.  “Now get out of the way, or you’ll find out whether or not I’m actually venomous.”

Aziraphale reluctantly stepped aside, and the demon continued on his path.

Crowley had _never_ shown this level of animosity towards him, not even back when they had first met as enemies in the Garden.  And what was all that talk as though he had been sick?

Then he glumly remembered that Hell had an archdemon of healing, and had a sneaking suspicion about what might have happened.

* * *

When Aziraphale went to Crowley’s flat the next day, he saw Crowley’s plants in the dumpster outside the building.  All of them.

“He wouldn’t have thrown them _all_ out,” said Aziraphale, fishing out a mostly-still-intact vine.  “He only throws out one or two to make the others scared.”

He huffed again and walked towards the entrance, clutching the poor plant, and buzzed Crowley on the intercom.

“Top floor flat.”

“Crowley, it’s Aziraphale. Let me in.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”   _Click._

“Crowley? Crowley!  Come back here this instant!”

He skulked away glumly, trying to think of what else to do.  Talking had usually worked in the past.

He stopped as the gleam of polished black metal caught his eye.  Crowley had locked himself in his flat, but his precious car was still outside.

Could he?  Could he really do it?  Harm the Bentley, even to get Crowley’s attention?  Aziraphale had done petty mischief as favors for Crowley in the past, and those experiences helped him now, because he wasn’t sure he would be able to do what he was about to do without them.

He withdrew the keys to his bookshop and with one long, deliberate motion, raked them along the side of the Bentley, from back door to headlight.  He stood back and eyed the window he knew was Crowley’s on the side of the building.

“Crowley!” he shouted up. “Come look what I’ve done.”

The top window banged open, and a haggard figure appeared.  There was a moment’s pause as Crowley took in the scene, and then he shouted, “You think damaging that piece of metal would hurt me?  You must be stupider than you look!  Tear it apart for all I care!”

Aziraphale gaped. Crowley had thrown a tantrum once in 1978 when another patron at a restaurant had dinged the Bentley with their car door, and the establishment had mysteriously closed within the month.  It was his “whole body glove” that he had chosen to drive on what he had believed might be his last day on Earth.  And now here he was, encouraging Aziraphale to damage it.

The window slammed shut.

Aziraphale slowly put his keys back in his pocket, not liking this new version of his counterpart one bit.  By the looks of him, he hadn’t even been feeding his corporation properly.

His love for Earth was gone.

Aziraphale walked away moodily, arguing with himself about what to do.  This didn’t seem right at all.  Crowley’s barely restrained enthusiasm for the clever things humans did and all the wondrous things on the planet was such a fundamental part of him that Aziraphale wasn’t sure who would be left if that was taken away.

It made sense, he knew. Crowley was a demon, and going out of one’s way to try and preserve God’s creation would be a great taboo among the ranks of those who themselves were rejected by God, and were tasked to try and destroy it.  Loving that planet?  They would never let it stand if they knew.  Someone must have said something after the Almostpocalypse after all. Crowley’s behavior during it would have left little room for doubt about his motivations.

Aziraphale crossed his arms, huffing to himself yet again, thinking of the way Crowley had helped _him_ see that the Earth was worth saving against the wishes of their superiors, through sushi and fine wine and bookshops and snuffboxes and things he loved.  It looked like now it was time to return the favor.


	5. A Forcible Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/156954791335/in-sickness-part-4

“Crowley, it’s Aziraphale. I’m inviting you to lunch with me. Call me when you receive this message. We are going to the Ritz today. I’ll come get you.”

Crowley didn’t call back, of course.  Aziraphale would have been surprised if he had, now that they were playing a more vicious version of the set-up-a-wile-thwart-a-wile game they had started out with before they made the Arrangement.

So Aziraphale spent the hours leading up to lunch scanning London to find him again, whatever nefarious deeds he was up to out in the city.  He eventually found him in a dim alley awash in garbage, bent over what looked like a homeless man sitting with his back against the cinderblock wall. Crowley was whispering something in his ear, and the human didn’t appear to be enjoying it.  It wasn’t clear if he was even aware that Crowley was there.

“ _What_ are you doing?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley glanced up but didn’t stand.  “I’m tempting someone.”

Aziraphale crossed his arms. “It’s hardly sporting, is it?  Kicking them while they’re down.”

The demon straightened up now.  “You expect me to feel sorry for them?”

“You’ve always felt sorry for them.  Have you forgotten?”

“That’s behind me now. Hardly proper for a demon.  It’s a lot easier to do this job when you don’t feel anything.”

The human drunkenly staggered to his feet, and Crowley hissed in annoyance, grabbed his lapels, and slammed him into the wall.

Aziraphale had been hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but here they were.  His ethereal essence reached out from his corporation, searched, and found the connection to his aural weapon.  He submerged his hand into the aether and withdrew it, leveling it at the demon.  “Let _go_ of him.”

“Or what?  You’ll stab me?”

The sword burst into flames with a _whoosh._  “If you’re going to start acting like a ‘proper’ demon, then maybe I should start acting like a proper angel.”

The flames crackled, and Aziraphale could see in Crowley’s eyes that he truly, genuinely believed he was dealing with an absolute enemy now.  The fear of death there was very real, even if it was being hastily covered by anger.

Crowley let go of the man, who slid down, ducked away, and fled.

“Fine,” said Crowley, turning to walk away.

“Ah-ah!” said Aziraphale, raising the sword.  “You’re not going anywhere.”

Crowley’s lip peeled back in a snaggle-toothed sneer.  “Fine, then. What do you want?”

“We’re going to lunch.”

“I’m not having lunch with _you_.”

“It wasn’t a _request_.”

“This is childish.”

Aziraphale slid his sword into his jacket and willed it invisible from human eyes, keeping one hand on the hilt.  “I believe _I’m_ calling the shots, here.”

They ended up walking all the way to the restaurant, Aziraphale occasionally poking the tip of the sword into the demon to remind him not to try anything.

“Haven’t seen you two in a while!” said the maître d’ cheerily as she saw Aziraphale.  She fell completely silent when she saw the look on Crowley’s face, and then scuttled off to get them menus and escape that terrible glare.

When she returned to seat them, Aziraphale waved a hand and said, “Don’t mind him.  He’s in an awful mood; don’t take it personally.”

The first thing out of Crowley’s mouth when she left them alone at the table was, “I’m not eating anything.”  Aziraphale bumped his sword into Crowley’s leg under the table, and the demon scowled violently and picked up the menu.

“I’m _not_ drinking this,” said Crowley as red wine was poured into his glass.  It was probably the most out-of-character thing Aziraphale had _ever_ heard him say.

“You certainly will.”

“I’m not going to let you _drug_ me, you brute!”

“You have to drink at least two glasses,” said Aziraphale, with another gentle but pointed poke in his leg.  “That’s what you always drank before.”

“I’m not _like_ I was before!  I’m better now!  I don’t have any use for this!”

Aziraphale took a small sip of his wine.  Crowley huffed angrily and did the same.

“Why are you making me do this?” he said as their first course came.

“Anything starting to come back to you?” said Aziraphale.

“I _remember_ this, Aziraphale, they didn’t erase my memory! I’m telling you, I don’t _want_ this anymore.”

 _That’s not you talking_ , thought Aziraphale.   _It’s whatever they’ve done to you._ “It won’t kill you to humor me.”

“ _You_ might,” muttered Crowley.  “I’m _not_ eating this.”

Aziraphale thought that perhaps they had seen that food and wine had been among the things Crowley enjoyed the most, and had made sure that the new version of him would want to stay away from them to prevent his backsliding.  “Crowley, your body needs food.  It’s obvious you haven’t been feeding it properly.”

“I don’t need food.  I can just keep it alive with miracles.”

“That’s not healthy for it. It needs real food.”

“Why?” he snarled. “So I can be a fat fuck like you?”

Aziraphale poked him again, just a little too hard, and realized he had drawn blood on Crowley’s shin. He regretted it, but he refused to let any remorse show on his face.  Crowley’s countenance twisted into bitter defeat, and he began to pick at the food.  

In the end, Aziraphale was able to coerce him into eating most of his pasta and part of a dessert. The demon acted like Aziraphale was torturing him the whole time.

Crowley jammed his hands in his pocket as they came outside.  “Well, that was pointless.  Can I go now?”

“Not yet,” said Aziraphale, shaking the bag of dinner rolls he had snagged.  “We’re going to feed the ducks.”

Crowley was boiling with barely suppressed rage on the walk to St. James’ Park.  Aziraphale forced himself to be pleasant as a foil, commenting on how nicely the flowers were blooming, the other visitors in the park, particularly colourful birds that flitted past, and any little thing that caught his attention. He desperately hoped that this might do something, _anything_ ; just a tiny spark of enjoyment or any glimpse of the old Crowley who had always been the one to suggest this activity would be enough.

They reached the pond. The ducks recognized them and clambered over each other to reach the edge of the water, waddling up to them, quacking expectantly.

Aziraphale took out a roll and crumbled it, tossing it to the ducks.  He held another one out to Crowley.  “Your turn.  Come on.”

Crowley took the bread but made no attempt to distribute it.  “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Do it.”

“They’re dirty and noisy and foul and they’ll be dead in a few years.  They haven’t got souls to corrupt or save.  This is a pointless waste of time.”

“ _Feed the damn ducks, demon._ ”

Crowley ripped the roll up and took a step forwards.  The ducks took one look at him, sensed there was something different about him, and squawked nervously, jostling to get away from him.

“You stupid animals!” He viciously kicked one, punting it back to the water’s edge.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasped, but the demon had already thrown the roll on the ground and begun to stomp away.

“I can’t take this torture anymore.  Kill me or whatever you want, but I’m not staying here one moment longer.”

Then Aziraphale stood alone among the bewildered and angry ducks.  The one Crowley had kicked was quacking weakly and dragging a broken wing on the ground, but Aziraphale was too deep in thought to notice.  He dropped the rest of the bread; the ducks, now confident again in Crowley’s absence, swarmed around his legs.  He stepped over them to leave.  “Okay, then, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

* * *

Aziraphale’s wings were very much similar to an owl’s wings, and owls, as nocturnal predators, can fly completely silently, with hardly a ruffle of their feathers.  Aziraphale carefully navigated himself to Crowley’s flat, slid the window open, and folded his wings so he could squeeze in.

It was completely dark, of course, and while angels didn’t have night vision as good as demons’, he could still see better than a human.  He took his shoes off and, leaving them by the window, he tiptoed through the flat, not entirely sure what he was looking for.  

He peeked into the bedroom. He was surprised to find that not only was it empty, it looked like the bed hadn’t been used in weeks.

Of course.   _Old_ Crowley loved sleep, not this one.

He withdrew and prowled around the interior, finding no sign that the demon was home at all.

So he went to the kitchen and slid all the drawers open, the silverware clattering.  There was nothing but knives.  The cabinets were empty, along with the fridge.  New Crowley apparently actively disliked food.

The living room was bare. Crowley’s CD collection and DVDs were gone, although the TV was still there.  The wire hangers and shelves where the plants had been by the window were all hopelessly empty.  

He stalked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet.

A row of pill bottles stared back at him.

“ _Gotcha,_ ” he said.  He took one and read the prescription label.  “Oh, _dear_.”

He feared what might happen if Crowley returned and caught him flushing the pills down the toilet here. So he swept all the bottles off the shelf and carried them in his pockets, the pills rattling as he went back to the window. He put his shoes on, leapt out, and disposed of them in his own home.

Angels can play dirty, too, if something they care about is on the line.


	6. Withdrawal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art in this chapter is by kogla http://kogla.tumblr.com/ and on dA http://kogla.deviantart.com/art/It-s-not-Lust-665433016
> 
> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/157125278785/in-sickness-part-5

Crowley accepted the idea that he had been sick before, but the truth was he still didn’t like Maltha’s medical care any more than he had when he had started treatment.  So when his pills turned up missing, he did not call to ask for more.  He was terrified of going back to the clinic in Hell or a house call to Earth.

He had a suspicion of what had happened to them, of course.  That irritating angel.  But anything is fair game in love and war.

Aziraphale would have disposed of them so that there was no getting them back, so there was no point in trying to look for them.  He made do with telling himself he didn’t need them anyway because he felt fine now. Just look at how successfully he had told off that maddening angel who had enabled him while he was still ill!

If the reader listens to their doctor, they probably know that there can be consequences for failing to follow instructions about finishing a course of medication.  But Crowley had never been one to do as others tell him.

Aziraphale kept a close eye on him.  One could easily call it surveillance, since they were supposedly enemies now.

He noticed changes in behaviour.  Crowley had never actually lived in his flat, but he seemed to hole himself up inside now, going out less and less frequently as time wore on.  Aziraphale could see through the window that he was using the phone more often, so perhaps he had decided to start working from home.

He also saw Crowley bringing in a bag of groceries once, but it was only a small bag suitable for perhaps a loaf of bread and some vegetables, which wasn’t nearly enough for the time during which it was the only food that went into the flat.

Aziraphale almost cheered when he saw the demon bringing a potted plant in, but a day later it was hurled out the window, the terracotta pot shattering as it hit the cement.  Aziraphale picked it up gently and took it back to his bookshop, replanting it and setting it next to the vine he had saved from the dumpster.

The day after that, Crowley set his nice TV out on the curb, went back inside, and then a few minutes later came out and dragged it back in, as though he couldn’t make up his mind on whether or not to get rid of it.

He held his breath as he watched Crowley come out and inspect the scratch on the Bentley.  The demon had noticeably lost weight and looked like he hadn’t combed his hair or bathed recently.  He looked muzzily at the car like he was trying to remember what it was for.  Aziraphale wanted to go to him, because he looked like he could use some help.  But he suspected that if the demon found out Aziraphale had been watching him this whole time, it might anger him and erase any progress they had made.

Crowley ran his finger along the scratch on the car, then kicked the tire, sneered at the vehicle, and retreated back inside.

Later that week another demon showed up, spent a few minutes inside, and then came back out, looking angry and harried.

* * *

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Crowley paced his flat violently.  He had been unable to make sense of anything he had been feeling for days.  He hadn’t gone out for much field work since that temptation the angel had thwarted.

This was that stupid angel’s fault. It had to be.

“I don’t _need_ it,” he moaned and steadied himself on the counter. His hands were shaking, his body protesting against the absence of the chemicals to which it had grown accustomed.

The scratch on the car had _bothered_ him.  It shouldn’t have bothered him.  It was a piece of metal that got him from point A to point B. It didn’t matter what it looked like. It _shouldn’t_.

But other humans would see it, and he had to maintain an image, didn’t he?  For the sake of his job, of course.  He couldn’t get anything done if humans didn’t respect him.

Why not?  He didn’t need any of this for his job.  He was a _demon_ ; he didn’t need a flat or a car or anything.  He _shouldn’t_ need it, but it felt like he did, and he’d bought that damn plant in a moment of weakness.  When he saw it on the windowsill the next morning it was like looking into a memory of who he used to be, and it had scared him so much he had tossed it out the window without a second thought.

The buzzer rang.

“Ssssshut up!” he screamed at it.

“Crowley,” said a voice. “It’s Hastur.  Thought I’d drop by for a visit.”

Crowley ran his fingers through his hair, his breath pitching up in intensity.  He pressed the intercom.  “Go away.”

“Aww, _Crowley_ ,” said Hastur’s voice, suddenly directly behind him, and he whirled around.  “I just wanted to check up on you.  I was worried.”  Hastur looked him up and down and took in his unkempt appearance, the ratty t-shirt and stained pajama pants, five-o-clock shadow, and greasy hair.  If they were both human (and actually cared about each other), Hastur _would_ have been worried.

“Get out of my flat.  Maltha told me you were the one who referred me. Go fuck yourself.”

“Crowley,” he purred, wrapping an arm around Crowley’s shoulder in a facsimile of a friendly gesture. “Come on, we’re buddies.  I did it for your sake.”

“Get off me,” Crowley snarled, ducking away from him.  “You did this as some sort of petty revenge and we both know it.”

Hastur gave a yellow-toothed grin and leaned in close.  “They _did_ punish me when I showed up without you after that stunt you pulled, Crowley.  Next time you feel like crossing me and getting me in trouble with the higher-ups, maybe you should think twice.   _I’m_ capable of some pretty creative maneuvers, too.”

“Ha,” said Crowley, “Your plan backfired, Hastur. Maltha _did_ help me.”  He tried to stop his hands from shaking.  “I’m better now.”

Hastur let out a harsh laugh.  “They did even better than I thought they would.”

Crowley glared at him silently, not sure what to do.  “Get out of my flat.  I’ve still got a lot of work to do today.”

Hastur strolled into the kitchen and opened the silverware drawer.  He took out a knife and began to pick under his filthy fingernails with it. “You know, Crowley, I noticed your car is still outside.”

“My car?”

“That car that you used to _love._ ”

“I don’t _love_ it.  It’s just a vehicle.”

“Mmm.”  He stopped the motion with the knife and looked Crowley directly in the eyes.  “It seems like you’re still attached to it, though.”

“It’s useful.”

“You don’t need it. If I were you, I’d get rid of it.”

“What do you care?” Crowley shouted.  “It’s just sitting there!  It’s not hurting anything!”

“All I’m saying is _someone_ might look at it and get concerned that _maybe_ you were starting to relapse.”  Hastur put the knife down and stalked into the next room, out of sight.  “And an astute observer might also see that you haven’t been taking the medication you were prescribed.”

“Fuck you!”

Hastur’s head reappeared. “I’m just _concerned_ about you, Crowley.  We’re friends, after all.”

“If you don’t leave right now, maybe I’ll tell Maltha _you_ need help too!”

“She wouldn’t believe anything you say,” said Hastur, but his expression was tinged with fear.

“Then I’ll tell her your bothering me is interfering with my recovery!  Just get out!”

Hastur scoffed, heading for the door.  “Tell her whatever you want.  I’m sure you’ll be seeing her soon enough when she finds out you’re not following doctor’s orders.”

He disappeared with a slam of the door.  Crowley went to the couch and curled up into a ball, still shaking, still unsure of anything.

He reached out, picked up his phone, and dialed a number.  He had previously erased it from his phone but, irritatingly, had discovered he had the thing memorized.

“Hello?”

“Aziraphale.  Please come over.”

* * *

This was no time to mess around.  Although Aziraphale arrived prepared for anything, he hoped for the best and showed up to the flat with three James Bond DVDs and several bags of unpopped popcorn. He also had his sword close by, stored in the aether where he could quickly summon it.

It had been long enough since Aziraphale had taken Crowley’s pills that he had no idea what to expect.

Crowley opened the door, his face blank.  He was at least dressed and his hair combed.  That was a good sign.  The flat looked much cleaner than Aziraphale had remembered from before he’d quit surveillance to prepare for coming over.

“Come in,” the demon said, gesturing to the flat vaguely.

Aziraphale took a seat on the couch, holding the DVDs.  “I’m not sure what you had planned, Crowley, but I brought some films you might like, if you’re interested.”

Crowley looked at him with dead eyes and sat on the couch next to him.  “That sounds wonderful.”

“Really?” said Aziraphale, stunned that it would be so easy.

“Put one on.”

“Which one, dear?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Aziraphale slid a DVD into the machine by the TV that had almost gotten the axe.  They sat on the couch two feet apart for 45 minutes of _You Only Live Twice_.  It was just as dreadful as Aziraphale remembered it being. He kept glancing out of the corner of his eye to look at Crowley, trying to gauge his reaction.

Finally, the demon picked up the remote and flicked the TV off.

“Crowley, why did you—” Aziraphale began, but he was cut off as Crowley threw himself on top of him, straddling his lap.  The demon locked his fingers into the angel’s hair, kissing him almost violently.

“Mmm,” said Aziraphale, trying to push him off, trying to get a word in past the lips assaulting him, but Crowley had a vice grip on him.

“No,” Aziraphale said, finally managing to break the chokehold Crowley’s kiss had on him.  The demon was still breathing heavily on him, eyes half-lidded, his hands trembling on his neck.  “No, no, no, Crowley, no.  What’s gotten into you?”

“It’s lust,” Crowley said, trying to resume what he had been doing.

“Mmm.”  Aziraphale managed to push him off again.  “No.   _No._  What are you doing?”

Crowley’s eyes opened all the way, but he refused to look directly at Aziraphale, instead glancing down with some mixture of shame and anger.  “It’s lust, it has to be.  I’m lusting after you.”

Aziraphale softened. “Crowley.”

“It’s lust!” he shouted, digging his nails into Aziraphale’s shoulders.  “It has to be!”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale repeated, putting his hands on the demon’s shoulders.  “It’s not lust.”

 

“It is!”

“It’s love.”

“It’s not!”  He squeezed his eyes shut.  “I’m better now!  I don’t feel love anymore!”

“Crowley.”

“Just fuck me!  I’m seducing you!  This isn’t hard!”

Of course it wouldn’t be right with Crowley like _this_ , but Aziraphale didn’t know how to communicate that without making him more upset. “No.”

The demon stood and backed away, extremely red and distressed.  “Then get out!”

“Crowley, we were just starting to—”

“Get out right now!”

The door slammed behind him when Aziraphale exited.  He heard things breaking inside the flat and Crowley cursing and screaming.  The angel hesitated, unsure of what to do.

In the end, he decided his presence would only make things worse.  He went home, resolving to check up on him in the morning.  It looked like they were getting close to a breakthrough.

* * *

Do you remember what was said earlier about how the demons who worked for Maltha weren’t good at their job because they had never been healers and weren’t cut out for it? That will be relevant in a moment.

When Crowley was finished trashing his apartment, he sat on his couch and stared blankly ahead, utterly spent.

Satan, his head hurt. He started to consider what the angel had said about feeding his body.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try.  He hadn’t touched those groceries he had brought in.

He stood, turned around, and nearly fell over backwards when he saw the imposing figure that had appeared behind the couch.

“Hello, Crowley,” said the demon, who had a medical bag hanging by his knees.  “My name is Marko.  You might remember me from before.  I work for Maltha.  Here for a house call.  There have been concerns voiced about you.”

Crowley stumbled backwards. “No, no, not you, get out, get _out._ ”

Marko frowned.  “Have you been taking the medication we gave you?”

“It’s gone,” Crowley said manically.  “I don’t want more.  I don’t want you here.  Get _out._ ”

Marko started towards him. Crowley darted to try and get away, but the other demon dropped his bag and tackled him to the floor.

“Oh my, you _have_ relapsed quite far, haven’t you?” he said as Crowley squirmed underneath him.  “Maltha said I should give you an injection instead of pills if you were noncompliant.”

Marko helped him up, keeping a crushing grip on the smaller demon’s arm.  He sat Crowley down on the couch and rifled around in his medical bag.

“I don’t want it.”

“You need it to get better.”

“I am better.”

“You’re obviously not.”

When the medical demon withdrew an enormous needle and a bottle of some clear liquid, Crowley tried to scurry away again, but Marko caught him before he could make it to the door.

“Sit still, please.”

Defeated, Crowley sunk into the couch as Marko used the needle to suck up some liquid from the bottle, tapping it and flicking it and _hmming_ about how much to put in, then drawing more up, flicking it, _hmming_ some more, then drawing up still more.

“Don’t you know how much to give me?”

“Shut up,” Marko snapped, and Crowley flinched.  “Of course I know how much to give you.”

With a frustrated plunge, the demon drew back from the vial until the needle was completely full, then unceremoniously turned and stuck it in Crowley’s arm.

“Ow,” Crowley hissed, flinching, jerking his arm away, and the needle snapped off painfully in his skin.

Marko made a disgusted sound and rifled around to get a new one.  “Sit _still_.”

Crowley winced as his arm was once again squeezed tightly to keep him place.  The other demon hastily withdrew the same amount of liquid and plunged it into his arm before releasing him.  Crowley rubbed the spot where the needle had gone in.

“There,” said the medical demon gruffly.  “Next time just sit still and things’ll go a lot easier.  You might have some swelling around the injection site, some—whatever. I’ll check back in later to give you another dose, or bring you some more pills, if by then you feel like taking them.”

His irritated voice sounded like he felt Crowley was personally responsible for the frustrations in his life.  Marko snapped his medical kit shut and hoisted it up.  “All right.”

“Do you have any other instructions for me?” said Crowley, still clutching his arm.

“Of course not.  What would there be for you to do?”

“I was just _asking_.”

Marko gave him a condescending look before leaving.

Crowley rubbed his arm, willing the pain there to go away.  He got up and tried to go back to work, but his headache was getting worse.  He was starting to feel Not Good.


	7. Overdose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art in this chapter is by kogla http://kogla.tumblr.com/ and on dA http://kogla.deviantart.com/art/Bastard-665434182
> 
> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/157294797995/in-sickness-part-6-overdose

The next time Aziraphale came over, he brought a bottle of good wine, hoping that he might have some success in convincing Crowley to drink it.  It was still early in the day, but that had never mattered as far as their alcohol consumption went.

He came uninvited this time, so he was nervous about how he would be received.  But if Crowley had calmed down by now, there could be a breakthrough if they were lucky. 

He bravely knocked on the door.  “Crowley?”

No response.

“Crowley, may I come in? I just want to talk with you.  I won’t try anything.  Promise.”

Still no response.

Maybe he wasn’t home? But he had hardly left his flat at all. Aziraphale thought that maybe he had better check on him.

“I’m going to come in. I’m opening the door now.”

The door quietly creaked open onto the messy flat, but it appeared empty.  “Crowley?  Are you in here?”

He stepped in, his hand finding the light switch.  He had not thought to look down, but upon doing so he found the demon lying facedown on the floor in a pool of vomit.  Aziraphale put the wine on the table and knelt, rolling him over.  The demon’s eyes were glassy and unfocused, and his head lolled with the motion. 

Aziraphale knew what overdose looked like.  “Oh, dear…What have they done to you now?”

Crowley’s pupils dilated when Aziraphale entered his field of vision, but otherwise he didn’t respond. Aziraphale got his hands under him and lifted him up, setting him gently on the couch. He pulled a handkerchief out and began wiping the demon’s face.  “Oh dear, oh dear…”

His shirt was soiled, so Aziraphale slipped it off him and went into the bedroom, opening a dresser and finding something that seemed like an appropriate replacement.

Aziraphale came back out to find that Crowley was vomiting again, leaning off the couch, his body contorting and heaving.

“Okay, you’re okay,” said Aziraphale, putting a hand on his back to steady him.

Crowley gave one final retch and would have toppled off the couch had Aziraphale not caught him. “G-get…out…” the demon gasped between shuddering breaths.

Aziraphale pretended not to hear him, and wiped his face again as Crowley groaned and clutched his stomach.  

Aziraphale tried to put the shirt on him.  Crowley seemed equally distressed by his state of undress and by Aziraphale’s attempts to re-clothe him, and he fought the angel weakly.  Aziraphale shushed him and made him lie down, buttoning the shirt up.

Crowley finally stopped trying to push Aziraphale away.  The angel put a hand on his forehead and felt he was burning with fever.  “Maybe I should get you some ice.” 

“B-bastard,” Crowley moaned.  “While I’m…weak…”

It was then that Aziraphale realized Crowley was using what little cognizance he had left to be anxious that Aziraphale was going to do something to him.  Trapped helpless in his flat with him, it _would_ have been a reasonable fear, if…

Aziraphale stroked his sweaty temple.  “Even now while I’m helping you, you still think we’re enemies?”

Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and moaned.

Aziraphale patted his arm in what he hoped was a comforting manner.  “I’ll go get the bin from the kitchen in case you get sick again.”

On his foray into the kitchen, he noticed burnt, cold toast sticking up out of the toaster.

“Crowley, were you trying to eat something?” he said as he came back in, but Crowley had fallen still and unresponsive, breathing quickly.  Aziraphale put the back of his hand to Crowley’s head again, feeling his fever with distress, trying to decide what to do. 

Even if he had known what Hell had done to Crowley, Aziraphale wouldn’t know what to do to help him. He wasn’t a healer, and he couldn’t think of any angelic healers who would be willing to heal a demon instead of smite it, or even any that liked Aziraphale enough to do him a favor.  And calling the infernal healers was out of the question; who knows what they would do to him this time around. He supposed he would just have to wait until whatever drug they had given him worked its way out of his system and hope for the best. 

He went back to the kitchen and retrieved some ice from the fridge, making an ice pack and putting it on Crowley’s forehead.  Aziraphale sat next to him and leaned Crowley’s head onto the angel’s lap.

Aziraphale’s James Bond DVDs were still on the end table, so he put one in.  There was no way to tell if Crowley was really watching it, but he was quiet, and his breathing had slowed back down to normal halfway through _Dr. No._

It was dark by the time the last DVD ran out.  Aziraphale flicked the lights on and saw that Crowley’s eyes had slid closed and that he appeared to be sleeping.  Aziraphale removed the melted ice pack, wiped a spot of drool from the corner of the demon’s mouth, and summoned the novel he had been reading from his shop.  One can’t move when a cat is sleeping on them, and cats are sort of similar to demons, so he figured the same rule applied. 

When Aziraphale noticed Crowley’s eyes were open again, he carefully eased out from under him and went to the kitchen, putting some bread in the toaster.

“Would you like to try and eat this?” he said, returning to his seat on the couch.  Crowley eyed the toast dully and didn’t respond, looking absolutely stoned.

Aziraphale took a piece and put it near his mouth, and he obediently took a bite.

“There we go,” he said, brushing crumbs from his mouth.

* * *

“Marko.”

The lesser demon froze at the sound of his name. He had been trying to slink back into the clinic unnoticed, but his lord was staring at him from her office all the way across the room. 

The call had been faint and he probably could have pretended he hadn’t heard it, if he hadn’t made eye contact with her.  But it was too late now.  He crossed the entryway and took a seat in front of Maltha’s desk.  “Yes, lord?”

“You just got back from the house call with Duke Hastur’s friend, right?”

“Yes, lord.”

“How is he?”

“He was not taking the pills and had begun to relapse.  I gave him an injection.”

Maltha withdrew a case folder and threw it open on her desk, scribbling notes.  “What were his symptoms?” 

Marko made a disgusted face. “You know. He was just acting like a bloody lunatic.  Not proper for a demon.”

Maltha’s pen rested completely still on the case file.  Marko did not elaborate further.

“All right,” said Maltha, closing the file and pushing it aside, her full, terrifying attention on the lesser demon now.  “You said you gave him an injection?  How much did you give him?”

“I gave him the amount we had discussed.”

“And how much was that?”

“It was as discussed.”

“I want to hear you say the number, Marko.”

Marko’s gaze fell to the corner of the desk.  “2mL.”

Maltha tented her hands. “And you’re sure you gave him 2mL?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Because if you gave him more it would cause an adverse reaction.”

“I didn’t give him more, lord.”

“Show me the contents of your medical bag, please.”

Marko set the kit on the desk and spilled it open, glass and plastic rattling onto the desk.

Maltha’s fingers plucked a glass vial up.  “Marko, the drug I gave you is completely gone.”

“After I injected him, I spilled some and contaminated it, so I dumped the rest out.”

Maltha’s intense gaze burned into him from across the desk.  Maltha could not tell whether or not he was lying and Marko, in turn, could not tell whether or not she believed him.

He squirmed. 

She brought the file back over and made annotations on it.  “Perhaps I should be the one to administer the second dose.”

“No, lord,” said Marko. “Er, I mean, you needn’t trouble yourself.  You have patients here who need your help.  I was going to return to Earth tomorrow for the second dose.”

“Very well,” said Maltha. “I suppose you’ll be needing some more. Wait here.”

She left and returned a few moments later, clinking a small glass bottle onto the desk.  It had exactly 2mL in it.

“If he seems better after this visit, try to give him some pills next time.”

Marko hastily collected the contents of his bag.  “Yes, lord. I’ll see to it he gets his treatment.”

Maltha stared at his back as he left.  “Be sure you do.”

* * *

Crowley continued to drift in and out of consciousness. Aziraphale was relieved when he seemed to fall asleep peacefully instead of merely falling unconscious.  Aziraphale laid him back on the couch and put a blanket over him, hoping he might get some real rest and start to feel better.

Aziraphale sat in the chair beside him, watching him until Aziraphale himself dozed off, and then awoke to the sight of Crowley pointing a knife at him.

“Get out.”

Aziraphale started awake. “ _Crowley_ —”

“Get out of my flat.”

Aziraphale stood.  “I see you’re feeling better,” he said wryly.

“I’ll be better without my enemy in my flat.”

“Are you quite sure you’re well enough to be on your own?  You still look rather wobbly.”

“Don’t make me beg. I’ve been humiliated enough as it is.”

“All right,” said Aziraphale quietly.  “I’ll leave if that’s what you really want.  But you can call me if—”

“You’re infuriating!” the demon shouted as loudly as his weakened voice would allow him.  “It would be so much easier to hate you if you weren’t like _this!_  Get out!”

The door slammed shut behind him, but thankfully there was quiet behind it this time.  Aziraphale strolled the hallway to the lift, came out on the first floor, and immediately flew back up to the little surveillance nest he had made where he could watch Crowley in his flat.

There was almost no activity to watch this time.  As soon as Aziraphale was able to see inside, Crowley was already on the couch passed out again.  Aziraphale was a bit more confident that he would wake back up this time, so he let him sleep without trying to interfere.

When Crowley finally stirred, it was to turn himself over and spend a while staring off into space. Then he walked woozily around his flat and spent some time toasting bread one slice at a time and eating it. Finally, he sat back down on the couch and flicked the telly back on, and Aziraphale was thrilled to see him pick up the James Bond DVDs and play one, and actually look interested in it.

Delighted, Aziraphale took out his mobile and dialed Crowley’s landline.

Through the window, Crowley’s head jerked towards the unheard phone.  After a few rings, he got up off the couch, and Aziraphale heard in the receiver, “Hello?”

“Crowley?  It’s Aziraphale.”

Crowley didn’t respond.

“You…ah, you can watch those movies I left there if you like.”

“What makes you think I’d want to watch those?”

“Oh, ah…Nothing.  I just thought.  You could feel free if you like.  You could make some popcorn if you think your stomach could handle it.”

“I’m not watching them,” said Crowley.  “And I’m not making popcorn.  That’s idiotic.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, trying to hide the smile in his voice.

They both sat in awkward silence, but Crowley did not hang up.

“What order do they go in?” Crowley finally said.

“What?”

“There’s three of them, but I can’t remember in what order you’re supposed to watch them.”

“Oh.  Ah, I’m afraid I don’t remember either.”

“Oh.”

“Why, are you going to watch them?”

“Of course not,” snarled Crowley.  “I was just checking to see if you knew, which you _don’t_ , because you’re a _bloody idiot._ ”

He hung up. Aziraphale snapped his phone shut and slid it back into his pocket, returning his attention back to the window.

Crowley reappeared from the dining room entrance, hopped up onto the couch, and used the remote to unpause the movie.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale.

After a moment of thought, Crowley got up off the couch and took one of the bags of unused popcorn from the end table, taking it into the kitchen.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

Sudden alarm prickled at Aziraphale’s neck.  He looked at the entrance to the building.  There was a burly demon there, dressed in a white smock with a medical case in his hand.

“No,” said Aziraphale. The demon disappeared instantly from the front stoop, probably materializing directly into Crowley’s flat.

“No, no, _no._ ”  Aziraphale spread his wings and dove straight for the window.

* * *

“I’m telling you, you gave me too much.”

Marko could see that Crowley was thinking about trying to dash off again and pinned him to the couch with a glare.  He stuck the needle in the bottle.  “I didn’t give you too much.”

“You did.”

“You didn’t have any reaction to it.”

“How would you know? You left moments after you gave it to me!”  Crowley crossed his arms as the other demon drew liquid into the needle, although he noticed that the amount was smaller this time.  “I was completely incapacitated!  I would have been done for if anyone had decided to—”

The window suddenly slammed open of its own accord so hard that the glass shattered.  A great pair of beige wings filled the view, then contracted as their owner barreled in, rolled once, and came up brandishing a sword. “Get _away_ from him!”

Maltha’s demons were not actually healers. They were spare demons who had been repurposed by Satan for the purpose of placating her.  And unbeknownst to—and unfortunately for—poor, heroic Aziraphale, the demon who was currently trying and failing to treat Crowley had originally been a warrior, which was the only thing he was really any good at.  And he hadn’t had the opportunity to indulge his thirst for violence in ages.

Marko immediately dropped the medical bag and the pretense of caring about anyone’s health.  He materialized an enormous mace, which fell into his eager hands.

“You stupid angel!” Crowley shouted.  “Get out of here!  What are you doing?”

Aziraphale ignored Crowley. His sword burst into flames and he said, “You’ve done quite enough damage already.  You’d better leave right now.” 

Crowley scuttled out of the way and pressed himself to the wall as the two flew at each other.

It was over surprisingly fast and was nothing like action movies would lead one to believe.  Both first blows landed simultaneously; Aziraphale’s sword skewered the demon’s clavicle, and Marko’s weapon bludgeoned Aziraphale’s ribs, audibly snapping bones.  Aziraphale gasped in pain and ripped his sword out.  Marko stumbled back, and Aziraphale tried to aim a blow at his neck, but he failed to muster up the strength and ended up gouging a trail from shoulder to hip instead.  As this was happening, Marko’s mace came down on Aziraphale’s sword arm.

Aziraphale stepped backwards, failing to keep his grip on his sword; it clattered to the ground. The mace cracked into his head next, and he slammed into the wall and fell to the floor, unable to right himself. 

His ears were ringing and his vision was failing and he could just barely hear Marko shrieking and cursing in pain, and Crowley’s voice yelling something indecipherable. Aziraphale tried to get up, but he couldn’t get his body to move at all, and it was with growing alarm that he realized the actual extent of the injury, which was ringing with pain both in the head of his corporation and his true form.

The ringing consumed his hearing and blotted out all other sounds, and his vision began to black out next. Blood continued to pour out from his corporation.

 _No, no, no don’t let me die here._  For some reason he had never considered this as a possibility when he had rushed in to defend Crowley.  He’d probably assumed things would just work out somehow the way they usually do.

He was forcing all his powers into mending the wound, to holding onto life, but his ethereal essence was straining and screaming as he exerted his powers, pain lancing out from the jagged wound in his head.  He wouldn’t be able to heal this on his own.  No way.  He needed a healer, but there was no way he could get to one in time, not with injuries like this.

Suddenly there was a pair of hands on him, holding him steady.  “Hold on, angel, I’ve got you,” said Crowley’s voice, before the angel blacked out.


	8. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On tubmlr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/157398789010/in-sickness-part-7-recovery

Aziraphale was a bit surprised to be alive at all, but he eventually found himself slowly rising out of the murky depths of unconsciousness.

Specifically, he found himself on Crowley’s couch, swathed in bandages and bindings, his vision obscured by the treatment on the side of his head that had been bludgeoned.  The lights were off and he was alone in the room, in the dim silence.  The demon who had attacked him was gone, but his medical bag was still on the floor, and its contents were scattered all about the room and covered in blood.  As though someone had used them in a rush.

“Crowley,” he said softly, remembering a dead dove brought back to life from years ago.  “I had no idea.”

Aziraphale’s sword was standing up in the corner.  He figured he had better retrieve it, but when he tried to get up from the couch, wooziness assaulted him and his body ached.  He closed his eyes, sighing and settling back in.

“Angel, are you awake?”

Aziraphale opened his eyes to see Crowley hiding in the darkened doorway, his luminous yellow gaze peering at him from the shadowy kitchen.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, pulling down the blanket that had been draped around him.

“You got him pretty good. He decided to flee back to Hell while he could still move instead of finishing you off.”

“Oh.”

Crowley padded forwards and sat in the easy chair, hiding his face.  “Why did you do that?  Why did you have to do that?”

Aziraphale fiddled with the hem of the blanket.  “I couldn’t let him do anything else to you.”

“Stupid.   _Stupid._ Why would you care about your enemy so much?”  Crowley’s voice was small and sad, as though he didn’t really believe the word _enemy_ when it left his lips.

“I could ask you the same thing,” said Aziraphale, touching the partially healed wounds on his skull.

“I don’t know why I did that,” said Crowley, his voice quavering.  “I _had_ to save you, but I don’t know why.  I shouldn’t care about you, so _why_ do I?”

“I care about you because I love you,” said Aziraphale, by way of suggestion.

There was silence for a while.

“I haven’t healed anyone in millennia,” said Crowley.  “I haven’t healed another angel or demon…”  He stopped, as though he couldn’t remember.

“Crowley, were you a healer before you fell?  Why did you never tell me?”

“Well it’s not something I like to go around telling everyone,” he said, sounding angry.

“Whyever not?”

“You think Hell has use for healers?  My skillset earned me nothing but scorn and mistreatment in Hell.”

“But what about Maltha?”

“She’s powerful enough that she doesn’t need to bother herself with what anyone else thinks.  I think she might have liked to have me for her clinic, but I guess she never recognized me.  I never wanted to stay down there.  I want to be up here.”

“Because you loved the Earth.”

Crowley’s face looked broken.  “Yes, I suppose I did.  Do.”

“Come here,” said Aziraphale, holding his arms out.  Crowley slipped off the chair and curled up next to him, being sure to avoid his wounds. Aziraphale kissed him.  “Thank you, my dear.”

“Thank _you_ , my angel.”

* * *

They spent a pleasant time together after that.  Crowley had the air of a man finally indulging a temptation.  He ordered takeout for them both and wolfed it down like he hadn’t eaten real food in months, which he hadn’t.  Aziraphale noticed that he remembered the angel was fond of sushi, but said nothing that might embarrass him as he played with his chopsticks.

“Thank you for lunch,” said Aziraphale.

“I owed you one from the Ritz,” said Crowley.  He sounded embarrassed to recall the incident.

“I’m glad you’re back,” said Aziraphale, placing a tentative hand on his arm. 

“Me too.”  Crowley sighed and set his chopsticks down. “Don’t get too used to having me this way, though.”

“Hm?”

“Did you forget that you just got into a fight with the demon sent to take care of me?  I’m sure Maltha herself will be up when she finds out what happened.  Probably first thing in the morning.”

Aziraphale’s face twisted into sorrow.  “I wish she would just leave you alone.  I hate her so much.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Hate her.”

“You don’t hate her after what she did to you?”

“I pity her.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew her in Heaven.”

“Oh.  …What was she like?”

Crowley stared into his soy sauce mournfully.  “She was strong and clever and full of so, so much love.  And righteous anger.  I was already in the Garden by the time she arrived in Hell, but as soon as I heard she had fallen, I knew what had happened.  She fell because she couldn’t take seeing her siblings hurting in Hell. Her bedside manner might not be the best, but out of all the archdemons, she’s one of the few I can honestly say isn’t cruel just for the fun of it.  She still has a good heart inside her.  I know she does.”

Aziraphale squeezed his arm. “Crowley?”

Crowley suddenly became self-aware and wiped a tear from his eye.

“You miss it, don’t you? Being a celestial healer?”

Crowley didn’t meet his eyes.  “I suppose I miss my siblings.  The companionship.  I had this one friend…Ramial.  Aziraphale, she and I…”  The thought died halfway to his lips, and he continued instead, “Hell just isn’t the same. I would never be happy in Maltha’s clinic, which is why I’ve tried my best to avoid having her recognize me. But I know she still loves, Aziraphale. If only there was some way to make her _see…_.”

Aziraphale looked at his clenched fist.  He put a hand on the demon’s.  “Well, all that doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter why she’s doing what she’s doing.  I won’t let her do anything else to you.”

Crowley let out a harsh laugh.  “Aziraphale, don’t be ridiculous.  You can’t stand up to her.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow.  “Crowley, I know she’s an archdemon, but she’s healing class.  I could at least give her a good fight! …You don’t think so?”

“She gave Satan himself a run for his money.  I don’t think she’d have a problem with a principality.”

“What?” said Aziraphale, astonished.

“You hadn’t heard?  I suppose you wouldn’t have, since you were in Heaven when that was happening in Hell…”

“But how?  She’s a healer!  That’d be like Raphael trying to fight with Michael.”

“Use your imagination a little, angel,” said Crowley.  He held out his hand.  “A healer is a special class of angel that has the ability to form a powerful bridge between their essence and yours.  You know how when a healer tends to you, they form a connection to your aura with their own?”

“Yes, and then they use that to build you back up where you’re injured.”

“Well, now imagine that while they were in there, with direct access to your most vulnerable areas, instead of building you up, they—”  Here he closed his fist and made a twisting motion, then set it back on his knee.  “She could name every bone in your body while breaking them.”

“I’d never thought it could be used that way,” said Aziraphale.

“Neither have most healers. Even I haven’t quite figured out how she does it.  The difference is Maltha is smart enough to break the rules and use things for purposes they weren’t intended for.  She’s one of the most powerful demons in creation because of that cleverness.  And that’s why…  Aziraphale, when she comes, I want you to stay out of her way.”

“No!” said Aziraphale.  “I can’t just stand by and let her take you.  You can’t ask me to do that.”

“Aziraphale, there won’t be enough left of you for me to scrape off the wall and heal this time! There’s a chance I might be able to talk her out of whatever she’s going to do, but I won’t let you try to win against her with your sword.  You’d _really_ have to catch her off guard to defeat her, and I’m not willing to take that chance.  Please?”

Aziraphale looked at him grimly.  “All right.” 

Crowley sighed again. “All right.  I suppose I should use what time I have to enjoy Earth while I still can.”

Aziraphale drew him closer.

“Could we watch those DVDs again?  Would you mind?”

“Not at all.  Put them on.”

Crowley had gotten virtually no sleep recently, so he was exhausted and fell asleep on Aziraphale halfway through the movie.  And of course Aziraphale had been on the verge of death recently, so he needed rest as well.  Mutual napping is an excellent bonding activity.

And they would need their rest for whatever was going to happen next.

* * *

“Lord Maltha, there is something that requires your attention.”

Maltha looked up from what she had been doing to see an imp standing in the doorway.  The imp was standing up ramrod straight, her shoulders tense, and Maltha could tell by the terrified look on her face she was here to deliver news she knew would upset the archdemon.

“What is it?” said Maltha, snapping her gloves off and washing her hands.

“It’s Marko.”

Maltha let out an animalistic growl of annoyance.  “Where is he?”

“In the lobby.”

The lesser demon pressed herself to the wall to get out of the way as Maltha exited, her white coat flapping with the speed of her movement.

She found Marko in the entryway; an enormous gouge had been scored down his torso, and one of his arms was hanging uselessly.  The demons around him were flitting about putting patches on him and trying to bind his wounds, but none of them were really much better healers than he was and their efforts were mostly fruitless.

“What happened?” Maltha boomed.

“Duke Hastur’s friend,” said Marko.  “I went to give him the second dose and—”

“ _He_ did this to you?”

“No, there was an angel. He had a sword.”

Maltha’s eyes went from Marko’s face to his wounds to the demons around him, then back up to his face.

“Must I do _everything_ myself?” she hissed ferociously.

The lights rattled with the force and anger of her departure, leaving the relieved lesser demons in the empty clinic unscathed, the only sound the buzzing of the lights.

* * *

Crowley awoke to dim moonlight seeping through the slats of the blinds, the angel’s softly rising and falling stomach serving for his pillow.  He lifted himself up, yawned, and rubbed his eyes.  Aziraphale took no notice, entombed in the comfortable sleep of someone who is recovered enough from injury to sleep without pain, but not enough to be told they have to get out of bed.

Crowley slipped out, tiptoed into the kitchen, and ducked into the fridge.  He grabbed a jug of milk that had not been there before.

The small light went out as he closed the fridge door, and when he came back up, a pair of red eyes stared at him from the opposite end of the room.

He knew this had been coming, but that did not make it less terrifying.  He clutched the milk in front of him, not wanting to be the one to break the silence.

“Crowley,” said Maltha.

“Yes?”

“You’ve relapsed quite far.”

He said nothing.

“You need to come back down to my clinic.  And stay there for as long as it takes for you to get better this time.”

“I’m not sick.”

Maltha rose up to her full height and stalked over to him.  “You’ve let your adversary into your base of operations.  You _fell asleep_ with him.  You’ve resisted treatment and one of my staff was gravely injured trying to help you. You openly admit to feelings that are inappropriate and harmful to a demon, and it has affected your ability to do your job.  You are a danger to yourself and others.”

“I’m not going!” Crowley shouted.  “Everything would be fine if you just left me alone!”

She grabbed his arm. “Let’s go.”

“Please don’t do this, Miriam!”

Her eyes widened. “What did you just call me?”

His eyes darted from her hand on his arm up to her face.  Her grip tightened.  “That was my name in Heaven. How could you possibly remember that?”  She looked to be processing something intensely.

Recognition began to dawn on her face.  She didn’t notice the newly awoken Aziraphale coming up behind her as fast as he could, weapon in his good hand.

A sword suddenly sprouted from her chest, blood spattering out onto Crowley.  She gasped and jerked, eyes dilating.

The sword withdrew.

A crimson waterfall started to pour out as soon as the weapon disappeared, leaving a gaping wound. Both of Maltha’s hands came up to stifle it as soon as the weapon was gone, fingers saturating with blood immediately, her face twisting into a frightening mask of hatred and anger.  Healing power flowed out from her hands, battling the tide of injury in her ravaged abdomen, skin crawling and aura flaring jaggedly to try and hold onto the rapidly dimming life force dwindling inside her.

“You!” she screamed, her voice warping.  “You damnable angel!”

Maltha turned around, and Aziraphale got a full look at her, the full burning force of her deathly glare, the full extent of the injury soaking her with blood.  She reached out one enormous clawed hand towards Aziraphale, rivulets of crimson streaming from her talons.

Aziraphale felt something terrifying, then.  The archdemon’s aura surged towards him and pressed onto him, a glowing abyss hungry for his destruction, prodding and needling at him to find a vulnerability through which it could enter and expand to tear him up, and Aziraphale recognized that if that hand touched him and made that connection, he would surely die.  And Aziraphale sensed that the only thing holding that terrible, deadly force back was the preoccupation with staving off death from the injury in Maltha’s torso.  The other hand remained clenched to the wound, pouring infernal healing power out and back into her body in an ouroboros to try and repair her dying form.

She might have succeeded had Aziraphale not stabbed her again.

The second wound was just above the first, directly through the heart.  The healing power broke and flickered out, overwhelmed, her aura sputtering with an unearthly cry.  The archdemon exploded into a fit of hisses and shrieks, collapsing, the sounds dissolving into a stream of mournful echoes as she hit the ground.

Aziraphale stood there, blood dripping down from his sword onto his hand.  He seemed just as shocked as Crowley and as Maltha herself, who lay dying with an expression of surprise on her face. 

Crowley looked from him to Maltha and back again.  “I…”

“I’m sorry.  I had to,” said Aziraphale.

“You…I don’t believe it,” said Crowley.  “You did it.”

“I had to,” Aziraphale repeated.

Maltha’s breast gave one final shuddering breath and fell still.

“I—I couldn’t let her take you,” said Aziraphale.   

Crowley knelt.   “She doesn’t deserve this, Aziraphale,” he said sorrowfully.  “Out of all the demons, she doesn’t deserve it.”

“Crowley.”

Crowley put his hand on the wound on her chest.  Even though her heart was silent, there was a trace of life left in her.  But it was fading fast.  “She only ever wanted to help others.  Even when she fell, that was all she wanted to do.” 

“Just let her die.”

Crowley looked up at him, those golden eyes pleading, then back down at limp body of the archdemon.

Aziraphale sighed.  He knew what Crowley wanted to do.  He thought it was a dreadful idea.  But he knelt down and helped anyway.


	9. Cotton Candy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art in this chapter is by kogla http://kogla.tumblr.com/
> 
> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/157549975960/in-sickness-part-8-cotton-candy

All that was left of the archdemon Maltha was a small flickering of life in her chest, which Crowley kept stoked with the healing power flowing through his hands.  Aziraphale helped dress the wounds at his direction.

It took about an hour for her heartbeat to start back up.  Crowley was sweating and shaking from the constant exertion by then, but his face broke into a huge grin when it happened.  Her chest began to rise and fall shortly afterwards, slowly and shallowly. “Ah, there we go.”

They worked together to haul her up onto the couch, then, which was no easy task given their relative sizes.

She remained comatose. Crowley worked on her intermittently over the span of a few days.  Aziraphale made sure he took breaks, watching over the archdemon while he slept and ate so she wouldn’t wake up and get the jump on them.  He watched the gradually strengthening aura with understandable unease, but Crowley reassured him she would be very weak when she woke up and it would take a lot more healing before she could use her powers again.

They bickered about the intended level of recovery, and even though he tried a few times Aziraphale could not convince Crowley to simply let her die despite the toll she had taken on him.

One day when Aziraphale was keeping watch, he saw her hand begin to twitch.  He immediately fetched Crowley from the kitchen where he had been eating.

“All right, this is it,” said Crowley.  “Go in the bedroom where she can’t see you until I tell you to come out.”

“All right.”

He was relieved that Aziraphale actually listened to him this time.

When Crowley came into the living room, Maltha had levered herself upright and was prodding muzzily at the spot where the wound had been, which was now a mass of scar tissue.  The lesser demon watched her with a certain amount of trepidation from the doorway.

Finally, she looked up at him.  “Crowley?”

“Yes?”

“That wound should have been fatal.  Only a real healer could have saved me.”

He lifted his hand and gave a sheepish wave.

She just looked at him.

“It was me.”

Her eyes roved his face, searching, and then her expression collapsed, eyes brimming over with tears. “My healer?  Is it really you?  After all this time?”

He nodded.

Her memories of Heaven and all the love she had held in her heart began to flood back into her at the sight of those golden eyes that had looked at her in Heaven all those years ago.  

She clambered off the couch unsteadily and stumbled over to him, engulfing him in an embrace, which he returned uneasily.

“I had given up on ever finding you,” she said into his hair, sniffling.  “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t even recognize you.  I’m so sorry. My poor healer.  After all this time.  I’m so sorry.”

Crowley allowed her to squeeze him and sob over him.  After a few minutes he managed to break her grip.  “Come on, sit back down.”

She did so, wiping her face with her palm.  “How could I have forgotten?” she said.  “How could I think love was a bad thing?”

Crowley sat next to her and took her other hand tentatively.  “You know Maltha,” he began cautiously, “this whole time you kept saying how it’s not proper for demons to feel love.  How it’s harmful and needs to be stamped out.  And I can’t help but wonder if it was me you were talking about, or about yourself.”

She let out a fresh stream of tears.  “They all hate me so much, Crowley.  I fell for them and they all hate me now. They didn’t even think twice about rejecting me. They would rather see me kill than be gentle with anyone.  I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.  It would be better to feel nothing at all. I haven’t done a single thing right in my entire existence.  They all hate me.  Even the underlings in my clinic.  And now I’ve finally found my healer, and even he hates me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Really?  But I…I tried to take away all that…the cars and the fountains with the electric lights…and the cotton candy sky….”

He patted her hand. “No, I don’t hate you.  Because I know, deep down, you were trying to help me. Because you didn’t want me to suffer…the same way you were suffering.”

She crushed him in a hug again, sobbing, and Crowley felt her aura softening around him.

When he finally managed to pry her off again, he held out his hand for a handshake.  “Maltha, I would like to be friends.  Would you like that?”

She looked at his hand.

“No one has ever asked you that before, have they?”

“Friends.  All right.  Yes, I would like that very much.”

Her talons swallowed his hand as she took it.

“All right,” said Crowley, getting up and moving towards the bedroom.  “Since we’re friends, there is someone I’d like you to meet.”

“All right,” said Maltha unsurely.

“When, er…Marko from your clinic…”

“Him,” said Maltha distastefully.

“Right,” said Crowley. “Well, he, er…gave me something I had a reaction to and—”

“I knew it,” growled Maltha. “I’ll skin him.”

“Well, I had a reaction, but someone came and took care of me while I was sick.”

Maltha looked at him warily. “It’s not that angel, is it?”

Crowley waved to the bedroom, and Aziraphale came out.

“That _angel_ does not love you,” snarled Maltha, removing herself from the couch and gripping Crowley, eying Aziraphale like she was a child threatened with the removal of her favourite toy.  “Angels _hurt_ demons.  He attacked me.”

“Wait, just listen!” Crowley yelled.

She looked down at him and saw the fear there, and it broke what heart had been developing inside her chest.  She let go of his arm.

He stepped forwards and took Aziraphale’s hand.  “He only attacked you because he was trying to keep me safe.  Aziraphale’s already had the chance to hurt me many times over, but he’s never taken it.  We’ve known each other for six thousand years.  And when I was completely helpless, he nursed me back to health and made sure I got something to eat.”

She looked at Aziraphale with watery eyes.  “But he’s an angel.  He just let you fall and did nothing about it.”

“Maltha,” said Crowley. “It’s been six thousand years.  What could he have done, really?  The past doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t have to matter.  What matters is what’s happening here and now.  Aziraphale is my friend.  He took care of me when I was hurt.  He loves me.”

Maltha looked at the angel uncertainly.  Care for the sick was the fastest way straight to her heart.  She couldn’t deny him credit.

“I suppose he must love you, then,” she finally conceded.  It was at that moment that she realized she had still been feeling love all along no matter how hard she had tried to push it down.  That love was what had gotten her kicked out of Heaven, and she would gladly fall all over again if it meant holding onto it.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, squeezing Crowley’s hand.

“Crowley, I’d like you to come work in my clinic,” said Maltha.  “You’re the only other one who could actually do this job.”

“Ahm,” said Crowley. “I…”

Maltha’s eyes shifted from his face down to some spot on the floor.  “Of course.  I forgot. The Earth.  You love it, and you want to be up here.  Though I cannot imagine why.”

He suspected that, had she been at full power, the request and subsequent reaction to his rejection might have been more forceful.

She hauled herself up. “Then I suppose in the end I’m alone all the same.  Thank you, Crowley.  I suppose I should get going now.”

Crowley bit his lip. “Maltha, I…Well, I’m not going to work in the clinic, but I did have something else in mind.  Why don’t you let us show you?”

“Show me what?”

“Why we love the Earth.”

* * *

Aziraphale was mostly better by then, so he volunteered to be the one to go to the store.  He didn’t have a good feeling about leaving Crowley and Maltha alone, but upon his return, he found the two of them in pajamas and swaddled in blankets, absolutely engrossed in _You Only Live Twice_.  They had just finished with what Crowley considered to be foremost among earthly pleasures: sleep.  All three of them had gotten a solid nine hours.  And now it was time for breakfast.

Aziraphale had been told he made “mean” omelets before, and although he wasn’t familiar with some of the terminology Crowley picked up from humans, he was familiar with the way Crowley flip-flopped certain phrases like _for goodness’ sake_ for dramatic effect, so he took it as a compliment.  He also took it to mean he should be the one to cook, since Crowley was usually too lazy to cook at all and would probably mess it up.

He figured that someone Maltha’s size would need more food, so he piled fried eggs, mounds of bacon, and several pieces of toast onto her plate before giving Crowley a serving half the size as hers.  She clearly enjoyed it, although she didn’t seem to be grasping the significance of it quite like they’d hoped.  

After breakfast, Aziraphale and Crowley dithered on trying to decide what activity the three of them should undertake next.  Maltha, same as most archdemons, rarely left Hell except for important matters up on Earth. In fact, she tended to leave a bit more often than most, since she occasionally had to subdue patients that got out of hand to bring them down, but even still she had never spent much time on Earth and it had all been for business.  She would hardly be familiar with anything.

Aziraphale suggested they take her to a restaurant, but Crowley pointed out she probably wouldn’t find that very impressive since she was used to being waited on in Hell. Crowley suggested instead that they take her shopping and let her try on some nice clothes, with a pointed look at her blood-stained doctor’s coat.  But Aziraphale said, with as much tact as he could manage, that he didn’t think any of the department stores nearby would have anything in her size.

Neither was sure exactly what series of thoughts led them to the outcome, but they eventually settled on going to an amusement park.

They had to convince her to change her shape into something a bit more human-like, and in the end she looked passible as a human except for the fact that she had a crop of black feathers instead of hair.  But it looked all the same from a distance, and Crowley couldn’t very well chastise her when he had never managed to change his eyes, so they figured it was good enough. Passersby also would probably not be able to tell what gender she was, but they figured that was something humans needed to learn to stop being unsettled by anyway, and headed out.

Even in her new form, Maltha was so huge that she barely fit in the Bentley, but she seemed to enjoy the car ride over.  She watched with interest but without comprehension as Crowley paid for their entry and a worker stamped her hand.

“And what’s this?” she said, examining the mark on her hand.  “It appears they’ve put a shape on me in ink.”

“That lets everyone know you’re allowed to be here,” said Crowley.

“It does not appear to have any supernatural hold on me.”

“It’s not a sigil. It’s just so everyone knows you paid to get in.”

“No one can deny me entry to where I choose to go.”

“All right,” said Crowley tentatively, “I mean, I suppose if that’s how you want to look at it.  But it’s worth it to do it the human way at least _some_ of the time.  It’s more enjoyable that way.”

She did not seem to fully believe him, but she soon dropped the issue and became engrossed in the sights. They had to prompt her to keep walking several times as she stopped in the middle of the walkway to simply peer up at the tall rides.  

“They did all this without miracles?” she said, astonished.

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“They’re very clever.”

Her eyes roved around, clearly impressed, seeming to understand a little bit more now.

Aziraphale looked on in horror as Crowley strong-armed Maltha into riding the carousel, but he was surprised to hear her giggling with delight as the horses teetered up and down. She stayed on when the ride slowed to a stop and only got off when Crowley prompted her that the ride was over.

She did not seem quite as fond of the roller coasters, though, and they avoided them altogether after the first experience with them, which resulted in an unfortunate accident to the poor teenager who was operating the thing.

They made their way to the food court after that, and Crowley made a beeline for a human spinning a candy-colored web in a whirling machine.

He returned with two globules and shoved a pink cloud at her.  “Here.”

She took it.  “Cotton candy.  You said this is what clouds look like at the sunset.”

Crowley was already cheek deep in a wad of blue sugar, and nodded as it dissolved in his mouth.

She picked it cautiously apart and consumed it slowly.  Aziraphale indulged in a funnel cake, which he shared with the two demons when Maltha had finished her cotton candy and began to peer at him curiously.

“We should go back to America some time,” Crowley said.  “I’ve heard they deep fry Oreos over there now.”

“What?” said Aziraphale. “That sounds disgusting.”

“America?” said Maltha.

“Mmm,” said Crowley. “Across the pond.”

“The pond?”

“The Atlantic Ocean. Angel, let’s go try that sideshow game next.”

They went over and Crowley procured a ball from the counter, handing it to Maltha.

She took it and eyed the bottles in the booth skeptically.  “And what am I supposed to do with this?”

“Knock down the bottles.”

“I could knock those bottles down from over here with my powers.”

“Ah, but that’d be cheating.”

“So?”

“ _So_ ,” said Crowley, giving the carnival worker and apologetic glance, “if you do it _without_ cheating, they’ll give you a prize.”

“What prize?”

“One of those.”

Maltha looked up at the stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling.  Her eyes fell to a goofy stuffed snake.

She knocked down the bottles with a bit too much vigor and ended up breaking one, but in the end she got what she wanted and walked away from the booth with the snake in her hands. She draped it around Crowley’s shoulders, and he rolled his eyes.

 

They decided it was time to leave when Maltha began to stare at the clowns with a hawkish, unsettled gaze. They went to the liquor store on the way home, then back to Crowley’s flat to assemble a picnic basket to take to the park.

It was a nice day; suspiciously nice, in fact, since the weather was rarely this bright and sunny. St. James was conveniently empty, letting them have their privacy.  They secured a spot by the duck pond and laid a blanket out.  Crowley kicked his shoes off and spread his scaly toes out on the grass, and Maltha followed suit.

They shared their meal with the ducks that were brave enough to get close.  Crowley found a duck sadly waddling around with a broken, half-healed wing.  He healed the bird and set it back in the water, where it quacked appreciatively and paddled away.

They sipped wine slowly. The sun slid downwards, streaking the powder blue sky with deep pink, and Maltha said _cotton candy_ quietly under her breath.

They were slightly tipsy from the wine, which was all gone now, and now that it was past dark they were out of excuses for remaining sober. They went back to the liquor store to load up, then headed back to Crowley’s flat.  And they engaged in Maltha in the kinds of conversation Aziraphale and Crowley had always had in back rooms of bookshops and bars and flats and private and public places where people get drunk, the extended discussions that started out serious but eventually dissolved into hysterical laughter into the wee hours of the morning.  The conversations that had always kept them close to each other and to the Earth.  

Aziraphale told her about the library of Alexandria and the printing press and his esoterica of books in his shop.  Crowley told her about the invention of the Model T and the proliferation of automobiles. They were astonished to find that she had no idea humans had invented machines for flying through the air, and her eyes sparkled as she said she had no idea humans were so clever and inventive.

They told her about Da Vinci and Bosch and Michelangelo and and Shakespeare and every clever human they had ever crossed paths with. They told her about the Spanish Inquisition and Pompeii and every great tragedy they had been present for.  They told her about the great fluctuation and onward march of human history, the rising and falling of Rome and Spain and Britain and America, and they told her about the Great War and World War II and Apartheid and how humans fought each other endlessly and were endlessly cruel despite their cleverness. And they told her about the humans who showed the goodness of human nature during those tragedies, the helpers and heroes and bleeding hearts who save thousands of lives when the need arises.

They told her about their own failed attempt to avert the apocalypse, which by now was far enough in the past to safely laugh about, and she covered her mouth to try and be polite, but her cheeks were flushed drunken red and she obviously found it very funny.

They then blacked out from drinking too much.  Aziraphale and Crowley had been matching Maltha’s pace, but her higher body weight meant she needed more to get drunk.  Neither had given it much thought because they were used to being able to hold their own in drinking contests, and they had driven right off the edge of that cliff into unconsciousness.

Maltha sat in the easy chair, swirling her glass of wine, eyeing the drunken angel and demon on the couch across from her.  Both of them were snoring with their mouths cracked open.

She was thinking.  She was thinking very hard.  Until a small sound behind her betrayed that they were no longer alone.

“Be quiet, please.”  She stood and turned around, drew her wings out, and flourished.  “Don’t wake them.”

Marko from her clinic stood there, still swathed in bandages, with Duke Hastur by his side. Both were looking at her unsurely.

“My lord,” said Marko. “Are you drunk?”

It took her a few tries to figure out how to do it, but she miracled the alcohol out of her bloodstream. “Of course not, Marko.  Don’t be absurd.”

“My lord—”

“I said don’t wake them,” she rumbled.  “They’re both still recovering.  They need their rest.  Let’s move into the kitchen.”

Demonic feet scrabbled on the tile, and Marko said with an irritated whisper, “My lord, you were supposed to be gone for a matter of hours, and when you didn’t reappear we became concerned about what had happened to you.  This demon showed up wanting to know about the progress of his friend, but I couldn’t tell him anything, so we came up to find you.”

“I’m fine,” said Maltha. “I’ve been spending some time up here on Earth.  No cause for alarm.”

Marko looked past her into the living room to the two sleeping figures there.  “He’s still not better.  Still with that angel…”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine,” said Hastur.  “He bloody well doesn’t behave like a demon should!”

“Keep your voice down,” she commanded for the third time.

Hastur looked supremely irritated at the request, but he obeyed nonetheless.  “He needs _something_ , lord, he’s still not—”

“I have decided he does not need any further treatment,” said Maltha.  “That’s my final decision.”

“No!” growled Hastur. “You said you would—that snake deserves whatever you give him after what he did!”

Maltha looked at Hastur, the gears in her head turning in a way they had never thought to for the last 6,000 years, and she finally, finally realized:

“You think my care is a punishment, don’t you, Hastur?”

Hastur’s eyes went wide. “Of course not, lord!”

“How dare you?” she hissed, her eyes dilated like a predatory bird about to strike.  “I’ve never done anything but try to help, and this is how you treat my love?”

“Love?” said Marko, alarmed. “Demons don’t—”

“Who exactly made you the judge of what demons _do_ and _don’t_?” she said.  “You’re fired, Marko.”

“You can’t fire me for expressing a concern about—”

“I’m _firing_ you because you forcefully overdosed a patient and put his life in danger. And I had to find this out from _him_ instead of you, because it didn’t occur to you to report it to me, somehow.  Don’t set foot in my clinic again.”

“Now hold on,” said Hastur. “You can’t just—”

“I can do whatever I like. If I catch either of you bothering these two again, you’ll regret it.  Now, both of you, get out, and don’t come back.”

They looked at each other dismally.

“Now.”

They both thought it wise to make themselves scarce quickly.

Maltha gave a sigh and trudged back into the living room.  Aziraphale and Crowley were still dead to the world; Aziraphale was sprawled out with his head tilted back, and Crowley was lying with his head resting on one of Aziraphale’s thighs.

She smiled at them despite herself, and inserted herself onto the couch with them, transferring Crowley’s head to her own lap and leaning Aziraphale’s head onto her shoulder, putting her arms around them and closing her eyes until she also fell asleep.

* * *

“Thank you for showing me the Earth.  I think I’m starting to see what you mean.”

It was another beautiful day; the delicious breeze whipped at Maltha’s feathers and the sundress she had put on, and she held a wide-brimmed hat onto her head with one hand to stop it from blowing away.

“I’m glad,” said Crowley.

She strode forwards and gave him a kiss on the forehead.  “My healer.”

Crowley smiled awkwardly, not sure what to say.

“I’m glad you ended up here, Crowley.  You belong on Earth, not in Hell.  I’ve only just realized that love really only blossoms on Earth.”

“What are you going to do now?” Aziraphale asked.

Maltha turned from them and looked off into the distant blue sky.  “You’ve made me realize I’ve spent far too much time sitting around in Hell. I’m going to go off and see the world and everything that’s in it, no matter how long it takes.  You’ve got me at a few millennia of disadvantage.  I have quite a steep learning curve to catch up with you.  Take care, Crowley, Aziraphale. The next time you see me, I will be learned in the ways of Earth to approach you as equals.  I look forward to it.  Maybe then I can finally have some genuine companionship.”

She began to stride away. “You sure you don’t want a ride?” said Crowley.

“I think I’ll walk,” Maltha called back to them, waving her hand vaguely.

“Have a nice trip!” said Aziraphale.

They stared at her vanishing figure.

“Does she know that we usually…um…take vehicles for long distances?” said Aziraphale.

“I…I don’t know,” said Crowley.  “Looks like she intends to just walk in a straight line till she finds something interesting.”

Her figure grew fainter and fainter in the distance.

“Are you sure letting her go off like this is a good idea?” said Aziraphale.

“Not at all,” said Crowley.

Her billowing white dress finally became indistinguishable among the landscape.

Crowley turned to Aziraphale and said, “Ah, well, now that that’s finally over, angel…”

“Yes?”

Crowley put a pair of sunglasses on his face, and grinned at his companion.  “We’re going to the auto body shop, and you’re going to get a new coat of paint put on the Bentley.”

“Me?!  Whatever for?”

“Because as I recall, there’s an enormous scratch on her side, and I know exactly who put it there.  Did you bring your wallet?”

Aziraphale gave an exasperated sigh.  “I did, as a matter of fact.  All right, let’s go then, if it bothers you that much.”

They headed back towards Crowley’s flat. Aziraphale took the demon’s hand as they walked.  “So…you’re a healer, hmm?  I’ve often wondered your job had been in Heaven.”

Crowley flushed. “Yeah, what of it?”

“Nothing at all,” said Aziraphale.  “I think it’s…cute.”

“ _Cute?_  How is it _cute?_ “

Aziraphale let go of his hand to wrap an arm around his shoulder instead.  “The big bad demon!  He’s actually quite nice if you ask him for a plaster.”

“All right, all right.”

“Oh, that whole thing about the Caduceus—that must have been you, then?”

“A bit of a joke, really. Just trying to tempt some Israelites into idol worship with the whole ‘look at the healing snake!’ part. Graven images and all that.”

“Backfired a little, did it?”

“All right,” said Crowley crankily.  “If you’re just going to tease me about it, I can use my staff to smack you over the head instead of give you a plaster, you know.”

“ _Ooh,_ you have a staff?  Kidding—don’t give me that look.  Oh hey!  Let’s stop by my bookshop.  I have a plant of yours that I saved from the dumpster.  Two, actually.”

“Really?  Angel, you shouldn’t have!”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand.  “Well, what are friends for, if not to watch out for you, in sickness and in health.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!! If you’re interested, the next story in this series is actually already posted and you can read it here on AO3 (just click 'next work' in this series)! I am going to take a small break from posting to give people time to read it (or read it again) if they like, and then I’ll be back with Part 3 some time in March!


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